‘No transit cuts!’
By
Monica Moorehead
Published Jun 15, 2005 8:32 PM
On June 13, at least 1,000 outraged people,
the majority of them African American, packed a hearing of the Maryland Transit
Administration at Baltimore’s War Memorial Plaza to protest the
MTA’s “restructuring” plan.
Working and poor people in
the United States have many issues to be angry about: the war in Iraq
threatening their youth, the growing income gap between rich and poor, cuts in
social services up and down the line, the disappearance of living-wage jobs, the
lack of affordable medical care, and a threat to Social Security.
On top
of this is police repression, especially in African American, Latino and Native
communities, and a general repression against foreigners, especially those from
the Middle East and South Asia.
So far this growing anger has had few open
displays. Some protests in Black communities in Denver, Detroit and Somerville,
Mass., have shown that fighting back is possible.
Now the people of
Baltimore are facing what could be the last straw: proposed cuts in bus
routes.
The MTA’s plan proposes to cut long-time, vital bus routes
throughout the city. These cuts will impact negatively on workers’ ability
to get to work on schedule, on youth going to school, and on the elderly and
disabled, who need reliable transportation without long waits.
An
estimated 52 out of 59 bus routes would be dramatically altered by this plan,
which is scheduled to go into effect by Oct. 16. Maryland Gov. Robert L.
Ehrlich, Jr., cut $5 million from the MTA budget in order to build a new
highway.
Person after person, numbering in the hundreds, went to the
podium to express their anger over this plan and tell how they and their
communities would be affected by it. Even the MTA authorities, who often
minimize public opposition to their management plans, said that 675 people had
signed up to speak by 5 p.m.
Renee Washington and Sharon Black, long-time
leaders of the All-Peoples Congress, garnered the most applause. They told the
audience and the MTA officials that this hearing should be declared illegal
because it was called on short notice. They put forth the demand that the MTA
must call new hearings that will allow the workers and the poor to organize to
attend and to put forth a united set of demands.
Washington and Black
raised the idea of calling a city-wide bus boycott against the MTA, similar to
the historic Montgomery bus boycott that was ignited on Dec. 1, 1955, to
eliminate segregated buses there. The idea of organizing protests in front of
the homes of MTA bosses also brought a roar of approval from the
crowd.
When the MTA officials tried to cut off these two women organizers,
the crowd told the MTA representatives that they supported their right to speak
as long as they wanted to. The crowd joined the APC leaders in a chant of
“Shut it down.”
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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