On the picket line

Philly transit workers strike

Who pays for healthcare? That’s the top issue in the Philadelphia transit workers strike, which went into effect after midnight on Oct. 31.

The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority is demanding that all workers pay 5 percent of the cost of their medical plan. The unions representing 5,300 workers—Transport Workers Local 234 and United Transportation Local 1594—refuse that uniform benefit cut.

Instead, union negotiators have proposed that all SEPTA employees, including management, contribute a set percentage of their pay toward healthcare benefits. That way a starting bus driver making less than $25,000 a year wouldn’t have to pay the same amount as a manager with a six-figure salary. Union officials have said that in past contracts wages were kept relatively low in exchange for the workers not paying healthcare premiums.

SEPTA is offering 3-percent raises over the next three years, which means the workers will barely keep up with inflation. So having to pay 5 percent of healthcare costs would amount to a significant pay cut for lower paid workers.

While the strike will disrupt the commute for the 460,000 working and oppressed people who use the buses, subways and trolleys every day, the striking transit workers are standing up for the right of all working people to have affordable healthcare. They deserve our support.

NYC’s New School and teachers agree on pact

Negotiators for UAW Local 7902, the unit representing more than 2,000 part-time faculty at the New School in New York City, spent many long hours at the table fighting for a decent first contract. Members of the local, popularly called Academics Come Together, voted on Oct. 21 to authorize a strike if negotiations didn’t produce results.

The strike vote spurred negotiations, which, after dragging on for months, were finally successful in the early hours of the morning on Oct. 31. The agreement, which still has to be ratified by the membership, includes a boost in wages, affordable health benefits, job security and seniority rights. What motivated the teachers to unionize in the fall of 2003 was that they were paid paltry wages, $1,000 to $3,000 per course, had no job security or seniority, and made so little in pay that only a third of those eligible could afford the healthcare plan.

NWA Mechanics hold the line

Northwest Airlines presented union negotiators representing 4,300 AFMA mechanics new contract terms on Oct. 13. The union agreed to send the terms to the membership for a vote. That was to be the first membership vote since the workers voted to go on strike on Aug. 19.

Even though the union leadership didn’t like the terms NWA was proposing—only 500 members would be rehired after the strike was over—they wanted NWA to know that AMFA members were strongly united behind the strike. But when the union leaders saw NWA’s final wording of the proposed contract, they labeled it a double-cross and called off the vote.

“Northwest added a paragraph that was never addressed at our last meeting,” wrote Jim Young, Region II director of AFMA, in an open letter to the strikers on Oct. 20. The new paragraph “would have abrogated AMFA’s basic authority as a union to govern itself and its members on internal union matters.” In addition, NWA said that if the union didn’t accept the proposed contract terms, they would resume hiring permanent replacements as of Oct. 21.

Clearly NWA, which filed for bankruptcy last summer, is out to bust the union. So helping the mechanics fight for union jobs at union wages should be the highest priority of both national groups representing union labor. Getting behind this strike at this critical time would elevate the entire labor movement. And it would show NWA—and the whole ruling class—they better not mess with union labor.