Boston: Occupy the T

This peoples assembly was just one of over 20 coordinated actions across the country organized by many forces, including Occupy and the Amalgamated Transit Union. The ranks of organized labor filled the State House alongside the Occupy the T protesters while speaker after speaker condemned the 23 percent transit fare hikes set to begin this summer.

The fare increases will hurt youth, the elderly and the disabled the most, with some commuter lines being eliminated completely. Fares on “the Ride,” that is, services for the disabled, will double.

April 4 was the 44th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. A solidarity message from President Chad Johnson of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1733, the Memphis, Tenn., sanitation workers union, which King was supporting when he was murdered, was read aloud at the rally. Paul Kilduff, president of the 2,200-member Postal Workers Union Local 100 gave a rousing speech of solidarity.

ATU rank-and-file members at the rally came wearing their Occupy “We are the 99%” T-shirts. In a statement to the rally, ATU President Larry Hanley wrote, “It’s time to fund mass transit now, these are good jobs and we are going to fight to keep them!”

John Lee, president of the ATU Local 589, also addressed the crowd: “The funding problems at the T aren’t because of service or workers. The funding problem is the debt that the MBTA was forced to take on by the Legislature a decade ago. You cannot solve this problem with service cuts — you have to cut the debt!”

Donna Kelly, president of the Massachusetts State Nurses Association, representing 23,000 unionized health care workers in Massachusetts, pledged to continue support for Occupy the T. After the State House rally, the crowd poured outside, where Occupy the T members set up an around-the-clock campsite in front of the State House.

The MBTA owes $5.5 billion dollars and is scheduled to pay $2.2 billion in interest alone to enrich big banks like J.P.Morgan and Deutsche Bank, with whom the T Board of directors entered into millions of dollars of credit default swaps.