BART Strike: It can be won if the Unions change course.

Tom Hock, the 1%'s man at BART.  Reason enough to support BART workers

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

At the request of California Governor Jerry Brown, a judge has stepped in and prevented Bay Area Rapid Transit workers from walking off the job. 

There is now another cooling off period, a 60 day one this time in the hope that the two sides can come to some agreement.  The judge, Curtis karnow, issued the injunction he said because the law said that he "shall" do so if he found that a strike would "significantly disrupt public transportation services and endanger the public's health, safety or welfare."   He added, "I read the word 'shall' as direction from the Legislature that I have to issue the order if the conditions are true,and I understand the parties all agree that those conditions are true."

In 60 days the unions can legally strike although as each day goes by the chance of winning one decreases.  Why the 1%’s courts wouldn’t claim a strike would,  “endanger the public's health, safety or welfare.” 60 days from now one can only wonder.

This dispute can be won but BART workers alone cannot win it and by that I mean make gains rather than slightly less aggressive concessions which has been the policy of the strategists atop organized Labor for decades. It cannot be won without the involvement of the communities in which we work and live. The power is not at the negotiating table; it is in the ranks of the trade union movement acting in unity with all workers and our communities.  As one of the prominent leaders of the 1%, George Schulz pointed out: “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.”   He is right about that.

The power of a united movement and direct action tactics must be brought to bear on the force behind this dispute and that’s the 1% whose intention it is to crush public sector unions and privatize public services. This comes after their victories over the autoworkers with the help of the UAW leadership at the highest levels. It is part of their plan to put the US working class on rations.

Unfortunately, the strategy and tactics that the leadership of the unions involved have applied so far, along with those in the International and regional bodies to which these unions are affiliated, have actually isolated BART workers further and made victory more difficult.

My view as I explained in previous commentaries, is that the unions involved, ATU 1555, AFSCME 3993 and SEIU 1021 which represent BART, and ATU 192 which represents AC Transit workers, the bus operators, should have been meeting way prior to the deadlines.  There should have been mass meetings of the members of these locals and out of this, a strike committee formed that would not just direct picket lines but also reach out to the rest of the trade union movement and our communities and develop a program that meets our needs rather than one that is acceptable to the 1% and the Democratic Party.  City of Oakland workers who were also in contract talks at the time should have also been approached. Other public sector unions were, and some still are in contract talks.  What good is a national organization of working people if local unions are left to fight what amounts to the forces of global capitalism alone? The best way to avoid a strike is to be fully prepared to win one beforehand and bring our natural allies on board.

Instead, when BART workers struck last month for four and a half days, bus drivers at AC Transit represented by ATU 192 could have legally struck but the union leaders refused to bring them out and they worked through it. This weakened both BART workers and AC Transit workers in their struggle for a better contract after years of concessions. City of Oakland workers in SEIU 1021 that also represents BART workers were also in contract talks and went on a one-day strike at the time but all these struggles were disconnected.  SEIU 1021 settled with the City of Oakland and ATU 192 has settled with AC Transit leaving BART workers out there on their own.  You don’t have to be a labor “expert” or an academic to see the flaws in this strategy. The mood at the Transit board meeting I went to before the strike was one of unity and cooperation between the members of both ATU 192 and 1555.

I have been in a couple of meetings of a solidarity committee that union officials also attend and they actually made the point that the public has to be included, that “an attack on BART workers is an attack on all workers “ which it is. The BART workers’ message, according to Chris Finn, Recording Secretary for ATU 1555 must get out to the public. Unfortunately, that message isn’t clear other than the quote above, and even that is somewhat muted. I saw Pete Castelli, the Executive Director of SEIU 1021 representing 52,000 workers at the solidarity meeting and heard him on TV later where he pointed out that a major problem was that BART was not negotiating in good faith.  Perhaps brother Castelli mentioned the solidarity committee and urged members of the working public to get involved with it bringing their issues to the table and the media censored these comments, but I doubt it.

“Negotiate in good faith” is a commonly used term used by top labor officials as to why   contract talks are stalled or strikes occur.  More often than not, union officials take workers out on strike over unfair labor practices like this not bargaining in good faith nonsense because they accept the bosses argument that concessions have to be made to make us competitive so striking for gains is pointless; they accept that society can’t afford it.

The fact that the 1% want to undermine BART workers pensions and health benefits has nothing to do with negotiating in good faith like some character flaw. It is a continuation of this process to take back from us what we have won over a century or more of struggle. Workers should not be ashamed of defending wages we can live on and a pension that is enough to keep us form working at MacDonald’s in our later years to get by. Every labor struggle should demand such retirements for all workers.

The bosses never negotiate in good faith, never have and never will. Despite gag orders or during cooling off periods, the war against the BART workers in the 1%’s media has been ferocious and has had an effect as polls indicate.  A KPIX 5 poll two weeks ago found the public supported the management by a 2-to-1, margin. Throw enough mud at someone and some of it will stick.

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, one of their mouthpieces, the columnist Chip Johnson points out that “..few public or private blue collar workers outside California have the kinds of generous retirement plans offered by CALPERS, the state’s municipal retirement system.”  “ Well they should have.” should be organized labor’s public response. And if generosity means being able to take ones family on a vacation and not have to go work at a fast food place at 65 to make ends meet, what’s wrong with that?

He then goes on to make the point that behind the BART workers’ motivation is that they’re blue collars workers who “like their counterparts in the private sector they have watched with disbelief and disgust as other public employees…….game the system for small fortunes.”  Among others, he gives city administrators, police and firefighters as an example.

But even those public administrators who “game” the system as he calls it cannot be compared to the activities of the hedge fund and private equity crowd and the bankers and other coupon clippers who plunder the wealth of society, not to mention the trillions of taxpayer dollars spent in predatory wars fought on behalf of the global corporations.  Someone earning $200,000 a year is not the cause of the capitalist economic crisis, especially in California, the home to most of the world’s billionaires. The system is fundamentally flawed and in crisis.

A serious weakness in the way the union officials are conducting this dispute is that the war for the heart and soul of the public is a one sided one. The leaders of the Unions involved though they have made appeals to the public for support and made reference to the attacks on BART workers being an attack on all workers have nothing concretely to offer the public. There is nothing on the table for the public that can counter the bosses’ propaganda against the workers. (See previous commentaries for more on this issue under the BART label on this blog).

If the union leaders want to make gains in this dispute as opposed to accepting slightly fewer concessions than the bosses want, they have to change course.  If they are a serious about building community support they have to have concrete issues on the negotiating table that appeal to the public, that make the difficulties they face through a strike worth going through and that will bring them in to it as conscious participants. But nether Chris Finn of the ATU or SEIU’s Pete Castelli, who have influence in these unions that those of us who want to help from the outside, have indicated they are serious about winning.  They have not said anything that would appeal to the public and counter the bosses’ ferocious propaganda war, nor have they reflected on the present strategy and made any efforts to correct it.

Just last weekend Roxanne Sanchez president of SEIU 1021 stated "BART management must come to the table prepared for real negotiations to reach a fair resolution so that we don't have a situation where we are all sitting here on Day 59 with no meaningful effort by management to negotiate,"

What does this mean; ”real negotiations” and a “fair resolution”?  The forces that brought in the union buster and privatization Czar Tom Hock know exactly what they’re doing.  They are clear on their goals and their goal is to do to the public sector what they’ve done to the private.  Let us consider that that autoworkers wages were cut in half by these people. You can read sister Sanchez' election program here.  You won’t see opposition to the Team Concept, the most destructive union policy on it.

"As we've said all along, we want to get an agreement," said another SEIU spokesperson, which is a meaningless statement. The bosses’ want an agreement too, but it’s what’s in that agreement that is the issue.

Chris Finn, ATU 1555’s Recording secretary who says the public must hear the BART workers’ message, pointed out Sunday through the media that BART workers took $100 million in concessions and that BART has a $125 million surplus but then urged the public to contact their representatives and their legislators and get them to look at BART’s finances. But the vast majority of the public, those workers who would actually get involved in this dispute if there was reason to, have no faith in these, legislators. Pointing out that the money is there is correct but left alone, many less fortunate workers and the unorganized will see this as just limiting the issues to those workers involved. It would have been more fruitful to urge them to get involved in the solidarity committee and point out what such unity could bring them. George Poppyack, the chief negotiator for the AFSCME local made a similar statement that if BART put the money on the table they’d talk. This does not help undermine BART’s propaganda that their employees are just greedy.

Urging workers to appeal to Democratic legislators, Union officials are urging us to place our faith in a party their own members and most of the working class have abandoned.

“There’s no reason”there should be the threat of a strike, Brother Finn announced through the media.  But there is.  The bosses will not stop. The 1% will not be coaxed away from their goal to place US workers on rations and the Democrats cannot be relied upon to halt their patron’s agenda.  This is not complicated.  None of the so-called friends of labor, like Barbara Lees or Gavin Newsom and all the other Democrats that take our money when its time to get elected, have come out publicly in support of the BART workers.  Their silence is deafening. With friends like these, we don’t need enemies. 

We have seen strike after strike go down in defeat over the past period not because the rank and file involved have been unwilling to fight, but because the heads of organized labor refuse to mobilize the potential power of their members and workers as a whole.  They start from a position of concessions and damage control because of the Team Concept policy that workers and bosses have the same interests.  For them, to mobilize this sleeping giant can only lead to chaos; they must help the bosses out. This is what holds them back primarily, not corruption as so many workers believe, or the generally obscene salaries and perks many of them receive which are secondary issues.

It is not unlike the union hierarchy to take workers out on strike due to the anger that exists in their ranks and as a means to alleviate some of this pressure from below which is why they do so with an approach that has brought defeat time and time again; appealing to the Democrats rather than relying on our own strength and making every labor dispute a social one. The UFCW had its members out here in California for 5 months in 2003 as the officials bargained for concessions at the table.  This caused untold hardship for these workers and left many of them disillusioned and demoralized and new hires hating the union for selling them down the river, after all, new hires don’t get to vote on contracts they have to work under and resent doing the same work for less pay and fewer benefits which creates division and weakens the organization further.

Bart workers have tremendous potential power but the forces against them are also powerful, the media the state, the police and the politicians. We must use this power to halt the 1%’s austerity agenda here in the Bay Area but we cannot succeed if we do not start from a position of what workers and our communities need to live a decent life and reject the 1%’s propaganda that there is no money in society.  History teaches us that the heads of organized Labor will not wage a serious offensive of our own without the threat of a militant movement from their ranks that threatens their role.  This is the task facing activists in the ranks of organized labor.

A real victory for BART workers would inspire millions of workers tired of years of defeats and concessions and a strike at BART can still be won. But policies that have failed us time and time again have to be abandoned and a real offensive of our own built with the intention of changing the balance of forces between capital and labor in this country.

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BART Strike: BART workers left to fight the forces of Wall Street alone

by Richard Mellor

Afscme local 444, retired

The San Francisco Chronicle this morning makes the point that politicians in California are “paralyzed”in the wake of the mass transit dispute and another possible strike after California governor Jerry Brown put a stop to the last one at the last minute.

This paralysis is due to “offending”voters on the one hand as the polls seem to indicate the management is winning the propaganda war, (with the help of the mass media) and, as Democrats, fear of losing union members’ money that the officialdom hands over to them for their election campaigns. They have no fear of that really as the heads of organized Labor have nowhere else to go politically.  Supporting the Democratic Party is better than running independent candidates which puts them in the hot seat as they’d have to produce the goods. They can blame the Democrats in the present set up.

“Most of the elected leaders have stayed on the sidelines” the Chronicle writes.  But they are not on the sidelines. Their silence has consequences and it shows how all the money these Democrats receive from members’ hard earned money doesn’t buy much when the fight breaks out in to the open and sides have to be taken. 

As things are, the BART workers are facing a formidable combination. They are at the negotiating table alone while the bosses have BART management, the imported union buster and privatizer Tom Hock from Veolia, and mediators.  Mediators are not objective; not neutral. Their job is to bring a settlement on the basis of labor peace, which means favorable to the bosses.  Mediators are a poor substitute for the power and conscious involvement of the union rank and file and workers in our communities.

These Democratic Party politicians who refuse to take sides have no problem taking our money. They are taking sides and they know it.  They are silent in the face of a war against workers’ living standards that is part of a general offensive against social services and the public sector which has a higher union density than the private and generally better working conditions. What friend, what sort of ally, stays silent when you’re under attack? 

These politicians, the Barbara Lees, Newsome’s and others are, by their silence, by their refusal to take sides, contributing to what will be a defeat for all workers, our communities and for the young people looking for decent jobs.  A politician or political party that claimed to represent working people or the poor, or claimed to be the party of the people as the Democrats do would be campaigning for the workers in this dispute.  Such a party and its political representatives should be countering the propaganda of the 1% that American workers are the problem and that society can’t afford social services or decent jobs. They would expose the “shared sacrifice” myth for what it is.

But as candidates of a party of the 1% and Wall Street, it is impossible for them to defend our interests.  The Democratic Party relies on the support organized labor gives it at election time, precinct walkers, phone banks, votes and of course money.  My former union, AFSCME provided some 40,000 volunteers for Walter Mondale’s campaign.  Who says we can’t have our own party? Despite giving billions to Democrats over the years it has not stopped the assault on workers often led by the very people who received that money.  It’s no wonder some 138 million Americans opted out of the process last election cycle.

Barbara Boxer and the other multi-millionaire, Dianne Feinstein whose husband is the notorious coupon clipper and former sweatshop owner Richard Blum, sent a letter to what the Chronicle refers to as the “warring parties”  urging them to work together “negotiate in good faith” and all that rubbish.

The problem is that the our organizations are infiltrated by representatives of this Wall Street Partythrough the union officialdom. Chris Daly, the “political director” of SEIU 1021 is a Democrat and San Francisco supervisor.  Political directors in the union officialdom are all about integrating organized Labor with this party of Wall Street and ensuring that any movement form below that threatens this relationship is subverted.  The Democratic Party is the political agent of the 1% inside our organizations.

We cannot drive back this offensive of capital in a money war; they have more of it. That’s why they’re called capitalists.  Our power lies in building our movement, our unions and an independent workers political party, independent of the two capitalist parties, in open opposition to them and based on our organizations in the workplace and the communities in which we live and work. Our power lies in stopping production.  Let’s be a little clearer on that issue. Stopping production is not a problem for the 1% when they shut down factories or businesses or public services because there’s no profit in it.  Here’ they’re shifting capital to more profitable ventures like speculation of gambling for example, But when we do it, against their will, that is different. When they do it in defense of their economic interests it's good; when we do it in ours through refusing to work, that's bad. That's mass terrorism.

At every step of the way in this dispute the union leadership involved has refused to take steps that could win over the public and win advances for their members and the community at large. I have written about this in detail during this dispute. In the first strike at the beginning of July when ATU 1555, SEIU 1021 and Afscme 3993 struck, the drivers at AC Transit, also in ATU but a different local chose not to come out. Not being in that local I am not privy to the internal goings on but I was at a board meeting a couple of weeks earlier when the rank and file of both locals packed the room and there was a strong commitment to stand together, a strong sense of unity. How come this never came to fruition? 

Any activist knows that the international leadership in these situations keeps an eye on things and there is no doubt in my mind that the reason the BART workers struck alone was the leadership of ATU 192 probably in conjunction with the international leadership made sure AC Transit drivers wouldn't go out. All sorts of fears would have been fed.  The union hierarchy is very good at telling us what we can’t do.

To the best of my knowledge, there was no public criticism of this mistake from the leaders of ATU 1555, AFSCME or SEIU 1021. It is taboo in the labor movement for the leadership of one sector or local to criticize another but that’s a mistake too; it’s a unity of leadership against the ranks. On top of this, City of Oakland workers, also in SEIU 1021, could have struck and many other unions are or have been in contract talks in this period. We cannot win without mass involvement and mass action.

I cannot see the bosses allowing the BART workers to strike again and I am sure that the top officials will make some deal. However, we have to be conditional about such things as there is tremendous anger in society and among the rank and file of the unions so keeping things under control is not always possible.  There will be a sincere effort ahead I think to legislate the BART workers’ right to strike away and because the union has no real message for the public, has nothing on the table for the public (see other blogs under the BART label) and without a generalized struggle drawing in the communities and the rest of the labor movement, the chances of defeat increase if they walk off.

Because AC Transit drivers in ATU 192 have settled as have the SEIU with the City of Oakland (a huge victory according to a high level official but you have to talk to the dues payer to get a more accurate appraisal), this means BART workers are out there on their own.  This is what happens in all these cases, one local or one group of workers left to fight the forces of global capitalism alone.  Important union officials from higher bodies will talk about solidarity with BART workers or that they bring solidarity form their members but this is simply rhetoric. In most cases these days, their members don’t even know who they are.

We can’t win without changing course, without doing things differently. The union officials at the highest levels, committed as they are to the Team Concept and labor/management cooperation, will not wage a real fight and build an offensive of our own, will  not take any steps forward unless they are absolutely forced to do so from below. There is nothing they fear more than a victory that will unleash the anger and frustration that millions of American workers feel after decades of defeats.

The rank and file union member has to step up to the plate and transform this situation.

*If you are interested in discussing where we go from here, not simply in the Unions but what we can do to change the balance of forces in US society more in our favor, please contact us as we are considering where we go from here and want to discuss this with other workers and eventually have some sort of meeting as well as possibly set up some sort of listserve for those out of the area.  Contact us at: we_know_whats_up@yahoo.com

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BART Strike: BART workers come under assault from the state

CA. governor, Jerry Brown, former left demagogue, organic farming advocate and seminarian. Uses his legal power to stop the BART strike. Who passed that law I wonder?  Do we think  for one minute they'd pass a law forbidding the closing of fire stations and health centers? Laws have a class base just like everything else. It's not against the law to throw people out of their homes. The Democrats are not our friends. Never have been.

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The much anticipated strike of BART workers here in the Bay Area was called off at the last minute after California governor Jerry Brown stepped in and imposed a seven day break. He has appointed a three member board of inquiry to find out the facts from both sides apparently.

As I pointed out last week there are some important lessons that arise in situations like these, one of them being the class bias of the mass media. In US society there is a massive and permanent ideological war waged by the mass media that Wall Street controls aimed at obscuring and actually denying the class nature of society, and indeed, that class struggle even exists, but when workers are forced to defend our interests in the way the BART workers are presently doing, the class nature of society is laid bare for all to see.

Jerry Brown, a politician representing the interests of the bankers, hedge fund managers and other coupon clippers----in short, the US capitalist class-----claims he stepped in to this dispute to save us all hardship.  If the dispute cannot be resolved in this seven days through the intervention of the board of inquiry, then “Brown is expected to make a swift decision on seeking a 60-day cooling off period.”, the San Francisco Chronicle reports this morning. Brown will ask the courts to impose this 60-day cooling off period and if the court decides that a strike “Will significantly disrupt public transportation services and will endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”, a strike will be illegal.

But Brown’s justification for stopping the strike at the last minute Sunday night was that the strike would, “significantly disrupt public transportation services and will endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.”.  Why would the courts reverse that? Is it likely that a strike deemed by the state through one of its major representatives a threat to our health and safety last Sunday, will be declared fine and dandy a week later or 60 days later?

We are not stupid.  In our communities, Brown and other representatives of the 1% are ordering fire stations closed because we can’t afford to keep them open they say. Might this be a tad dangerous for us; put us at risk?  Might closing fire stations, schools and health care facilities in a society where national health care is dismal,  “..endanger the public’s health, safety and welfare.” We know it would.  Brown knows it does but it is a political decision Brown and his class colleagues make as a necessary part of their agenda to put the US workers and middle class on rations. It is necessary to shift the crisis of capitalism in a global economy on to our backs and take back all the gains that have been won by working people over a century and a half of struggle. It is part of the declining influence of US capitalism on the world stage.  We have to be more competitive and that means, work cheaper, faster and without unions that actually go on the offensive to oppose this strategy. Profits come before safety in capitalist society.

The BART workers have been demonized daily in the mass media. They’re lazy, greedy, get paid too much etc.  But they don’t want to go backwards like any of us. They want to keep at very least their pensions, benefits and wage rates. Workers should support this as their loss will simply increase the downward trajectory Wall Street has for all of us. The 1% uses the most extreme violence to protect their interests.  But for the 1%, a strike is mass terrorism because it hurts their profits, the public’s health and safety be damned.

The 1%’s public voice, the San Francisco Chronicle, reports that the strike earlier this month “plunged the Bay Area into a morass and congestion.”  The strike cost $73 million a day “…in lost time, productivity and wages.”, the Chronicle adds.  But what about profits?  It is profits that are the issue and profits are severely affected when workers cannot be brought to the workplace where profits are born or to the stores where we are to buy stuff. So in a society where profits are everything they are left out of this equation. 

We only have to stop and think for a second to remind ourselves amid the mass of lies and propaganda that their claims of public safety are a smoke screen. Every American worker knows that the people in power in this country don’t give a damn about the rest of us. Everything we have in this country, every social benefit, every political advance, every material gain, has come about by doing what the BART workers are doing.  The capitalists have capital, the media, the police and the courts, and the military when they need to call on troops to fire on their own kin, ( a risky business) but we have labor power.  Without the ability to strike we are left to the mercy of the institutions of the 1%. 

The 1% is using all their “legal” tricks to halt the possible success of a BART strike.  It’s profits yes, but there is the effect on morale as well as after years of defeats and declining living standards any victory by labor over the forces of capital would inspire all of us, would show us that we can win, that we can make gains, that we can drive back this offensive and austerity agenda of the bankers, the hedge fund wasters and all the coupon clippers who plunder the wealth of society. 

The US bosses actually fear the potential power of the US working class, fear that the stifling bureaucracy at the helm of the trade union movement might not be able to control their members and derail and undermine every movement from below as was done in Wisconsin, the strikes of the 1980’s and the Occupy Movement and its attempts to build strong links with organized Labor. This is what’s at stake here for them.  It was to stem that power that Taft Hartley legislation was introduced after the mass strikes of the 1930’s and the huge strike wave of 1946. We have to have a mass defiance of these anti worker laws.

The Chronicle in today’s editorial warns that “shutting down this transit lifeline will send shock waves throughout the region” and appeals to Brown to ensure that he must use his political power to ensure a strike is prevented. 

As is always the case the strategists atop organized Labor (and lets not kid ourselves, the bigwigs at the AFL-CIO and the CTW coalition in Washington are in on all this behind the scenes) are doing what they can to ensure that things don’t get out of hand.  Our power lies in our ability to stop production and draw the rest of the working class and our communities in to this struggle. I was at a solidarity meeting for the BART workers over the weekend and when I left that meeting with 7 hours to deadline, representatives of the union representing BART train drivers and Station Agents as well as the Executive Director (Sounds a bit like a business doesn’t it) of the Union representing other staff like custodians for example, stressed that they were in strike mode. They were going to strike at midnight as management was not showing any effort to negotiate in good faith.

In fact, this is what the Executive Director of SEIU 1021 repeated on the TV news a few hours later; management was refusing to negotiate in good faith.  These are two major themes that arise, the bosses won’t negotiate in good faith and we want a contract. He nor any other official had anything to say about workers needing to fight for more at the expense of the 1% or the public’s needs and how the union was fighting for more transit, free fares for seniors, half fare for the unemployed, more jobs, 24 hour trains or increased routes and transit for the disabled and how this can be paid for by the rich and ending trillion dollar wars. 

He certainly never mentioned any solidarity committee and how the public could get in touch with it to join organized labor in our struggle for a better life for all. This is because the official union strategy doesn’t include an agenda for the working public so they have no intention of broadening this struggle to include the communities. The appeal to the community is merely a tactic to get some (normally well meaning leftists and some not so well meaning ones) to help organize a few rallies and such here and there to pressure the bosses to be a little less aggressive. Many seasoned leftists/activists know this but refuse to point this out so the left bureaucracy can play this game safe in knowing that the strategy will not be challenged.

The response to these two points the officials raise should be obvious: (1) the bosses never negotiate in good faith. (2) They want a contract too.  The difference is what is in that contract.

This is at the heart of the matter. This particular dispute is not about the right to a contract but what’s in the contract.  The problem is that the Union officialdom from all three locals immediately involved do not want to discuss this issue in depth.  Like the leadership of organized Labor as a whole, they accept that some concessions have to be made, or more accurately they have no intention of doing what needs to be done to make gains, not just for the BART workers but for workers as a whole including those that have to use BART every day and who will be adversely affected by a strike. The president of ATU 1555 made that clear when she told the SF Chronicle earlier this month the Union“would sign a contract today if it keeps up with the cost of living in the Bay Area and gives us health and safety protections.”

Yet a short while after that as the intransigence of management became obvious, the solidarity committee was formed to help draw in the rest of the labor movement, the communities that BART serves and working class and poor communities in particular. I attended the first meeting of this solidarity group at ATU 1555’s hall where 1555’s Recording Secretary made it quite clear that “We have to get our message out to the public”.

When I asked what that message was, it amounted to this: “An attack on BART workers is an attack workers.” This is a good start but if we are to build a genuine union rank and file/community support network that actually gets involved in this historic struggle between capital and labor we must offer something in return.  We cannot be seen as we so often are as simply at the table with the boss defending only our own narrow interests.

The reality is this.  We cannot counter the massive propaganda war against the BART workers in the media if the Unions aren’t fighting for those workers who depend on BART as well as those who work for BART.  We have given many examples of some issues that can be raised. But not only must these issues be raised in the media, they must be raised at the negotiating table on behalf of the communities and with real rank and file community activists involved which they can be through a real solidarity support committee. I say this as when the Union hierarchy talks of linking with the community, they generally mean with leading business or religious and pro establishment figures in these communities rather than the folks at the grass root level who are serious about changing the present situation.

At the rally for the BART workers last week we heard the same generalizations but no specifics about what we must be done to win.  Leaders of unions as far away as Wisconsin and even Danny Glover talked of the need for solidarity with the BART workers, but what does this mean without a program and strategy to win it?  It’s empty rhetoric and I’ve heard it for 30 years.

Here are some examples suggested on a flier we published on this issue, some issues the the unions should fight for and what steps that can be taken to build something real:

* Free transportation for all senior citizens

• Half fare for the unemployed and all those on public assistance, welfare etc.

• Increased and free transportation for the disabled.

• A massive increase in bus routes and in areas where seniors live, shorter distance between stops.

• Job training programs in conjunction with the unions to be set up in each community and a $20 an hour minimum wage

• End the Team Concept, no more labor/management cooperation--peace through strength. Start by firing consultants Cornu and Mooney as their negotiators (both are big players in the California Democratic Party)

• A shorter workweek with no loss in pay to create jobs

• No to austerity----end all wars and occupations bring the troops home

The bosses are serious about taking away from us as all the gains made through the great struggles that took place with the rise of the CIO in the 30’s and the Civil Rights movement. We cannot defeat them alone, no one local can stop them in isolation nor can individual communities.  We have to start where we are, if in a union by building rank and file opposition caucus based on a program and strategy that demands what we need rather than what is acceptable to wall Street and a “fight to win” strategy for accomplishing these goals. In the communities we do the same and in each case we link these struggles together as well as reach out to workers internationally.

The AC Transit drivers (also in ATU but a different local) contract ends at midnight on Wednesday and they are threatening a strike if their issues are not resolved although there is no reason to think they would strike when they refused to at the time they were strongest.  When BART workers struck, under the direction of the leadership, the AC Transit drivers union weakened the strike and their own member’s interests by picking up some of the slack. Only a short time before, the unity and mood between these two groups of workers was strong and there was no doubt in my mind they would have used their united power to win a better contract for all had the leadership been willing to lead. (We should not discount the role of the International leadership in these instances as they undermine any local leadership that violates the relationship they have with the bosses based on Labor peace by going on the offensive.) The leadership atop these organizations are deathly afraid of their own members.

We cannot win if we blindly obey laws that are made by politicians of the 1% in the interests of the 1%.  Mass violation of the law is unavoidable if we want to stop this assault on workers and the middle class.  We all want a peaceful life, but they won’t let us have a peaceful life, unless we passively agree with their agenda which is to drive us down to the wages and conditions of third world countries.  They’re already on the way to doing that here in many industries especially the service sector and industries that employ women and minorities.   But they have also successfully cut wages in half in auto with the help of the leadership of the UAW leadership.

If they are successful in defeating the BART workers especially if they successfully deny them the right to strike which Governor Brown is doing temporarily but is on the cards in a more permanent fashion, it will be a huge setback for all Bay Area workers.  A strike is disruptive, not just for the public but for the workers involved, and it is obvious that I am critical of the how the heads of organized labor conduct these affairs as well as their role in general. But we must sift through the rubbish we hear and read in the 1%’s  media and support these brothers and sisters.

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A poem for the BART workers. A short History of Inconvenience.

Bus drivers are on strike in Dublin Ireland and like here, the media tries to undermine the strike in the eyes of the public stressing the inconvenience it causes. The Irish poet Kevin Higgins dedicated this short poem to the Dublin strikers and shares it with Facts For Working people in support of the BART workers who are being attacked in the 1%'s media.

Inconvenience: A History

for the striking Dublin bus workers and those

who complain about being inconvenienced by their strike

When the housing market went further south

than the East Antarctic Ice Sheet,

my chiropodist climbed Croagh Patrick

to consider his property portfolio

and never came back down.

The toe nails on my left foot

are not expected to recover.

My hairdresser abandoned

me for the scalps of Alberta, Canada.

It’s been one bad hair month

after another four successive quarters, 

which reminds me of the time

our landscaper, Seamus, got skinned

alive and driven around

in the passenger seat of a taxi

         by a breakaway UVF faction.

The Rhododendrons were not

themselves after that.

Tragic, almost, as the night

the truck pulled up to take

our family tailor, Shmuel,  

to the train and

Birkenau. Trapped in the nightmare

from which we’re all

trying to wriggle free, I went about my

business as usual

in desperate need of a decent suit.

KEVIN HIGGINS 

About the author

Kevin Higgins facilitates poetry workshops at Galway Arts Centre; teaches creative writing at Galway Technical Institute and on the Brothers of Charity Away With Words creative writing programme for people with disabilities. He is also Writer-in-Residence at Merlin Park Hospital and the poetry critic of the Galway Advertiser. He was a founding co-editor of The Burning Bush literary magazine. His first collection of poems The Boy With No Face was published by Salmon in February 2005 and was short-listed for the 2006 Strong Award. His second collection, Time Gentlemen, Please,was published in March 2008 by Salmon. One of the poems from Time Gentlemen, Please, ‘My Militant Tendency’, featured in the Forward Book of Poetry 2009.  His work also features in the anthology Identity Parade – New British and Irish Poets (Ed Roddy Lumsden, Bloodaxe, 2010). Frightening New Furniture is his third collection of poems and was published in 2010 by Salmon Poetry. Kevin has read his work at most of the major literary festivals in Ireland and at Arts Council and Culture Ireland supported poetry events in Kansas City, USA (2006), Los Angeles, USA (2007), London, UK (2007), New York, USA (2008), Athens, Greece (2008); St. Louis, USA (2008), Chicago, USA (2009), Denver, USA (2010), Washington D.C (2011), Huntington, West Virginia, USA (2011), Geelong, Australia (2011), Canberra, Australia (2011), St. Louis, USA (2013), Boston, USA (2013) & Amherst, Massachusetts (2013). Kevin is co-organiser of Over The Edge literary events. Mentioning The War, a collection of his essays and reviews was published in April 2012 by Salmon.  Mentioning The War has been described by Clare Daly T.D. as “a really good and provocative read. It will jolt you; it will certainly touch you; make you laugh; maybe make you snarl a little bit as well, depending on where you come from or what your background is.” Kevin’s fourth collection of poetry, The Ghost In The Lobby, will be published by Salmon Poetry in early 2014.

To buy any of Kevin’s books see http://www.salmonpoetry.com/details.php?ID=255&a=108

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BART Strike lessons: The media is not neutral.

by Richard Mellor

Afscme local 444, retired

At the height of the Occupy Movement the support for these mostly young people was considerable.  They were attacking the 1% and speaking out for all workers.  Here in Oakland I remember being on the back of a flatbed truck about to speak on the day of the big strike that shut down three shifts at the port of Oakland and felt a tug at my ankle. It was my former boss.

As I looked out in to the crowd, some estimates put at 30 to 40 thousand I saw co-workers and management personnel who I never see at events like these.  People have had enough.  Thousands of decent jobs lost, people thrown out of their homes in to the street, poor people cut off from public assistance and those protesting the shutting down of fire stations in their neighborhoods or the state parks where they took their families for the only affordable vacation around, were there looking for some solution to this crisis that is being shifted on to the shoulders of workers and the middle class. And this, after we bailed out the bankers and dragged their system from the edge of the abyss.  Older people, the disabled, youth, a Lucky Stores worker earning $21 an hour after more than 40 years on the job described how powerful the feeling was to be there that day and shut down the docks.

The wages of US workers have been driven so far back we are now becoming attractive fare for global investors. Italian manufacturers have threatened their employees that they will move to the US if they don’t accept cuts.  US firms in Canada have shut plants and headed south in order to benefit from wages that are half that of our Canadian brothers and sisters.  The 1% in the US has, with the help of their media waged an unprecedented war on US workers and our organizations aided also by a leadership atop organized labor that has cooperated all the way in the hope of a return to the good old days.

Power attracts as they say which is why the Occupy Movement gained such widespread support among the population.  Somebody was fighting back and fighting back in a way that we would have to fight if we want to win. Defiance of the law and mass action, occupations, pickets, generalizing the struggle and stopping production is what works, it always has and always will in a society where the wealth of that society has its origins in the labor process. (Occupy made some serious mistakes too)

So we must recognize it for what it is when we read in their mass media the not so subtle attacks on BART workers here in the Bay Area.  Bart workers are not even the highest paid workers but it is not in our interests, any workers interest to help the 1% drive wages of any of us lower.

I have been a wage-worker all my life. I retired as a public sector worker here in the Bay Area and I have a retirement I can live on, I am not ashamed of it. I don’t clip coupons and earn a million a year doing that. I don’t buy and sell currencies or speculate on the price of food, a human need. I didn’t earn $5 billion dollars one year betting some older person, some poor person wanting a roof over their heads would be overwhelmed by interest payments and be kicked out of their home like John Paulson, a major coupon clipper did.

I am like millions of us out there and very much like a BART worker. We are not fools.  I ask all my class brothers and sisters to consider this.  The Daily Review continues the propaganda war against BART workers that another bourgeois rag the Chronicle has been doing all week.  It has all sorts of figures out today showing how most members of the public oppose the workers and support BART management. 70% oppose the strike and 30% support it.   53% feel BART workers are overcompensated 16% think they’re undercompensated. These papers are organs of the 1%. The contents are not written for them by them, they are written by their paid mouthpieces for us, to influence our views of the world around us.  al Qaeda is out to get us.  Foreigners are jealous of us.  The wars abroad are about freedom and defensive wars as opposed to predatory offensive actions. There is no money in society to provide a decent life for all, education, mass transit, health care etc. The figures above come from the Bay Area Council, a business group. It is profits, profits, profits, they care about, not inconveniencing the public.

The bosses are determined to win this one as they did with auto and as they did with the events in Wisconsin where a movement of thousands of workers was derailed and directed in to electoral politics and that black hole we call the Democratic Party.  This was the strategy of the labor leadership and still is.

Negotiations are continuing through this weekend but the unions are outnumbered as other representatives of the 1%, state and federal mediators are in the room.  The point has been reached where nothing can be gained at the table if it is not backed up by the power of the workers and our communities, as George Schultz pointed out, “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table.” We can learn from our enemies.

It is still possible that the union leaders could agree to continue working and avoid a strike or California governor Jerry Brown could intervene and call a 60-day cooling off period.  The Union leadership of the entire Bay Area are responsible if the bosses have their way and defeat the BART workers.  The objective is to privatize public transit and at the same time undermine the workers in this field by introducing anti-labor legislation. “Working class people can’t afford this (strike)” says a representative of the business council, “Our region can’t afford it”.  Once again, he is referring to the business community, to profits and the incomes of the wealthy and the 1%.

The present situation cannot go on indeed, it has to won by them or by us but we can’t win it unless we change course and we know the union leadership will not do that so the rank and file of the Unions cannot remain passive followers when it comes to the policies of the leadership that have such a profound affect on our lives.

What must be done if working people are not to suffer another defeat in the bosses’ war on our living standards is that serious demands must be put on the table including demands that relate to the traveling public like free transportation for seniors, half fare for the unemployed and those on public assistance. The corporation’s can pay and fares can be lowered for all. We have to raise the stakes and demand what people need to live a decent life as opposed to what is acceptable to the 1% and their representatives in the Democratic Party. (If you would like a pdf of the flier we handed out at Thursday’s rally explaining our views in more detail send an e mail to we_know_whats_up@yahoo.com

As I explained in a previous commentary, bus drivers should strike with BART workers.  They are in the same union. What good is a union if we can’t have this basic solidarity, if we don’t take advantage of the power we have as workers to force the 1% to back off. The leadership of the ATU at the highest levels refuses to do this because they are unwilling to fight; they have the same world view as the 1%, they worship the market and see it as the answer to all things including mass transit and water. It’s like entering a boxing ring with one hand tied behind our backs. A mass mobilization of workers can only lead to chaos from their point of view and they will resist it ferociously.

This is why they appeal to mediators and the politicians as opposed to relying on their own members and the power of workers in general. Jerry Brown, a union busting Wall Street politician is supported by Bank of America, Wal Mart, Facebook and billionaires like Steven Spielberg and Ari Emanuel who is the brother Rahm Emanuel , Obama’s buddy who is savaging Chicago’s public schools planning to close 150 of them.

Yet unions will support Brown in his efforts to stay in the governor’s seat and some are like SEIU 1000 (SEIU also represents BART and City of Oakland workers) that represents state workers who Brown has waged a vicious war against.  The policies of the present heads of organized Labor have been a disaster for us. We cannot buy the favor of Wall Street politicians like Brown or any of them.  We can’t defeat capital with capital because they have more of it.  That’s why they’re called capitalists. We can defeat them with labor, we have more of that, much more which is why they divide us along race, gender and religious lines and why they blame the poor for our predicament or public sector workers, immigrants or foreigners, anything to turn one section of the working class against the other, union against non union.  Al Qaeda would wish it could inflict the pain and misery on US society and workers that our own 1% do.

Rely on our own strength. Demand what workers’ and the public need not what is acceptable to the bosses, Wall Street and the Democrats and use our power as workers to win it. Build a mass workers’ party as an alternative to the two parties of Wall Street.

We are witnessing an historical battle going on in the Bay Area. But we're fighting it with one hand tied behind out  backs.

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BART Strike: BART workers must not be left to fight the 1% alone.

by Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

I attended last nights “solidarity”rally with BART workers in Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland.  Amalgamated Transport Union 1555, the union that has done the most organizing for it and that had initiated it, had the most members present from what I could see. I shot some video as you can see above but couldn’t stand listening to the speeches for long.  While many of the workers there attending such an event for the first time would naturally feel inspired and hopeful, I have heard it all before and if we take time to think about what was said form the podium we see clearly it amounts to empty rhetoric.

I was also at the first planning meeting for the rally when Chris Finn, ATU 1555’s Recording Secretary talked of the need to “get our message out to the public” but when I rose to ask him what that message was, he was reluctant to open up a discussion on the subject. In fact, there was no message to the public except to announce repeatedly that an attack on BART workers is an attack on all of us. From the podium last night the president of the ILWU whose officials remind us time and time again of 1934’s General Strike struck the same message telling the crowd that “An injury to one is and injury to all”and other speakers including the actor Danny Glover continued in the same vein.  I could stand it any more as no one raised what we must do to win this historic struggle between capital and labor that is taking place before us.

We are only two days away now from another strike and the war being waged against the BART workers in the 1%’s press is heating up as I write. The main offensive is to turn the public against the BART workers through their media. Today’s San Francisco Chronicle attacks the BART workers because of their benefits.  “Most public employees in the Bay Area contribute far more for their medical insurance and pensions than do BART workers..” the Chronicle reports, adding that they,  “…pay nothing toward their pensions and a flat $92 a month for medical care for workers and their families.” .  Why would we oppose that?  We need to be defending it and extending it and more, to all workers. It is not in workers’ interests to help the 1% attack those of us that are somewhat better off, have higher pay and better benefits or benefits at all. We want to raise us all up not help the 1% push us all down.

Making the 1%’s arguments like a good propaganda outlet should, the Chronicle whines about how medical insurance costs have increased and how pensions have risen 126% in the last 8 years. “This next contract must address the skyrocketing cost of employee benefits…” says a mouthpiece for the agency, “…and we have to have employees share in some of that risk.”

Many workers have chosen to seek the easy life, the line of least resistance as workers throughout the country have had their wages and benefits savaged over the past period. The auto-workers went from $28 an hour to $14.  The US is becoming attractive as a low waged economy and we reported on this blog about the Caterpillar factory that shut its doors in London Ontario and moved production to LaGrange Illinois where wages are 50% lower. The US “has become much more efficient, making it more attractive for global manufacturers.” the Wall Street Journal reported.

We must not kid ourselves, the bosses are serious about crushing the public sector and the Bay Area is in the eye of this storm. 

The bosses have brought in Tom Hock who is president of labor negotiations for Veolia transportation. Veolia is the largest operator of private public transit in the world and a major privatizer. Its is also connected with MV transportation, the private outfit that operates transit for the disabled.  The Teamsters represent these workers and where were they yesterday? These workers earn less with fewer benefits than MUNI or BART. They need to be brought in to this struggle to strengthen it and raise their wages and benefits to the higher level.  Hock has been on a 10-day vacation as negotiations have continued. He is expected to return to the bargaining table Tuesday, which is an indication of the contempt the bosses have for the workers and the public and further illustrates their strategy which is to force the BART workers in to striking, isolating them from the public making their defeat certain.

Veolia’s has its origins in the French water company Vivendi Universal that had a third of its directors under investigation for corruption in 1996. It has been notorious for corruption, fraud and putting profit before the public in its global privatization spree. 

Veolia settled out of court when sued under the Clean Water Act for dumping more than 10 million gallons of wastewater and untreated sewage over a 5-year period into the San Francisco Bay after creating an inadequate improvement project. You can read more about Veolia here.

This struggle is about privatizing our public transit system. We have written numerous pieces about this strike over the last week or two and I recommend people read them.  But let’s keep the right perspective here. The Chronicle doesn’t remind the public day in day out of the massive increase in corporate property values due to the BART system that is a publicly built and funded system.  Less than 5% of BART’s revenue comes from property taxes but corporate property and real estate values have sky rocketed thanks to BART.  I have given numerous examples of other sources of waste and funds. We know in our gut that there is plenty of money in society and plenty of thieving at the top.

The trade union leaders involved have asked the BART Board of Directors to investigate Hock and threatened a lawsuit if Hock is not removed.  And here is where I have to be blunt as the stakes are so high.  We cannot win by asking the very forces that are in the forefront of the war against us to help.  We have suffered defeat after defeat, setback after setback not because we are weak, but because of the failed and what have become, catastrophic policies of the heads of organized labor that have led to these defeats.  Individual locals are left fighting what amounts to global capitalism alone.  We cannot win that way.  The labor officialdom is asking the Board of Directors to help them?  They are appealing to the courts?  This doesn’t scare the 1%. They own the courts and the judges and the politicians in the two Wall Street parties represent their interests not ours. The power of workers to stop their system from functioning is what will bring them around. Force matters.

The problem is that the bosses don’t fear us because they know that the labor leadership from the top on down will not bring the power of labor and the working class as a whole to the table. We explained that if we want to win the unions must put on the table issues that affect the public. In the interests of space I won’t repeat it but I commented on this here.  The Unions must fight for the public, not talk in abstract phrases about us all being in this together and how we need to have solidarity.  Solidarity around what issues? What is the union movement offering the public concretely for their support?

At yesterday’s rally as our flier said, instead of empty phrases the union leadership should have been announcing the formation of a joint strike committee including members of the public and community and youth organizations.  It is my guess that the AC Transit bus drivers who are also in ATU but different local will not strike with the Train Operators. This is a huge mistake and the reason for it is the leadership does not want to wage a real war.  They are terrified of a victory as they have, like all of them, built a relationship with the employers based on cooperation and Labor peace. They see nothing but chaos coming out of a real victory that will inspire their members to get more and question the obscene salaries and perks that the heads of organized labor receive.

I was at the board meeting when AC Transit drivers, station agents and train operators packed the room and the feeling of unity and fighting together was strong. But the leadership refuses to lead. But a strike can be won; we have the power in the workplace and the community.  ATU 1555, SEIU 1021, ATU 192 representing AC Transit drivers, AFSCME representing supervisors and the Ferry operators should all come out together.  Mass meetings should be held to discuss tactics and build the strike for a victory. People can be sent out to other workplaces like the city of Oakland and other corporation yards and encourage workers to get involved, whole families should get involved around offensive demands, jobs, free transportation, 24 hour trains etc. Mass meetings can be held in the communities. The line against their austerity offensive can be drawn here in the Bay Area.

It was clear from the speeches at the rally that the present leadership as is always the case has no intention of launching a real fightback, the bosses know this which is whey they are so confident and are taking the opportunity to crush the BART workers.  We don’t need solidarity in the abstract in this situation; we need concrete and militant direct action, not letters to our Congressperson. They only listen to us if we hurt their bottom line.

Brothers and sisters that pay the dues in the unions, you cannot sit idly by and allow the leadership of these organizations that were built over a century and a half of sacrifice to continue their disastrous concessionary policies of cooperation and appeasement, of calling a defeat a victory because we lost slightly less than the boss wanted. The days of us paying dues and them producing the goods are over. We have no alternative but to fight. We owe it to our ancestors, to our children and to ourselves to drive back this offensive of the 1% with an offensive of our own. The money’s there, we know that in our hearts.  We are dealing with some ruthless people but we have been in worse situations before.
 

It’s time to seize the time.

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