Thousands of NYC workers shout:
Union power!
By G. Dunkel
New York
Thousands of Transport Workers Local 100 members marched
across the Brooklyn Bridge in the early evening of Dec. 16.
They chanted: "Who's got the power? We've got the power!" and
"What kind of power? Union power!"
The deal to avoid a transit strike in New York, which would
have disrupted the city's economic activity and put a big dent
into holiday sales, was reached shortly after a militant rally
of transit workers and their supporters ended.
The workers chanted, "Make the crooks open the books,"
referring to the Metropolitan Transit Authority's budget
deficit that ballooned from $400 million in October, before the
elections, to $1.1 billion in November. The MTA is a state
agency that controls the buses and subways in New York City,
the Long Island Railroad, the Metro North commuter railroad to
the northern suburbs, and some bridges and tunnels.
As they marched around City Hall, they also chanted: "Shut
up, Mike. Where's your bike?" Michael Bloomberg, the
billionaire mayor of New York, had ostentatiously bought a
fancy bike to ride during the threatened transit strike.
At the rally after the march, workers spoke bitterly of
anger at the way management treats them, and its lack of
respect for them. Leaders from other unions--from firefighters
to university professors and teachers--brought messages of
solidarity.
Barbara Bowen, president of the Professional Staff Congress,
which represents professors and professional staff at the city
university, pointed out that tax cuts, mainly for the rich and
wealthy, had cost the city and state $13 billion in the 1990s.
She proposed solving the fiscal crisis by taxing the rich
instead of trying to squeeze the workers and the poor.
The tentative contract must still be ratified by the union's
executive board and the membership. The MTA's original proposal
was zero raises over three years in addition to pension and
health-care givebacks that would have cost the members about
$10,000 each.
The tentative contract provides a $1,000 lump sum in the
first year, followed by a 3-percent raise in each of the next
two years, a reported $280-million payment to the workers'
health plan, and improvements in discipline procedures and
sick-leave policy.
Reprinted from the Dec. 26, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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