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 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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BART Strike: Bosses want to end the right to strike to curb transit unions' power

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

Given the politics of the San Francisco Bay Area and the relatively high union density compared to other areas of the country, it appears no official spokesperson for the Bay Area Rapid Transit Agency (BART) dare raise the need to introduce legislation to prevent BART employees from striking, this doesn’t mean they don’t privately support such legislation.  Many of the liberal politicians who receive union money won’t say much either although they can’t be relied upon to defend our right to strike.

In such cases these representatives of moneyed interests have other means by which they can influence public opinion, the mass media.  The front page headline in the San Francisco chronicle today reads: “BART Unions’ BIG Weapon”.  The “big weapon” this organ of the 1% is referring to is the right to strike.

The article refers to the BART strike earlier this month that was halted by a 30-day cooling off period agreed to between the parties.  The strike, “..generated  a lot of anger and frustration and caused many consumers to question why transport workers are permitted to strike in the Bay Area when transit strikes are illegal in major cities..” the Chronicle says. The paper even stresses that the San Francisco public transit system is prevented by city charter from striking.

There is no doubt a strike of this nature is disruptive and causes hardship for other workers and the population that uses the system; a strike is always a sacrifice, especially for those who participate in it.  But the truth is that the Chronicle piece is written in order to tap in to this frustration and offer a solution to it, legislate the right to strike away or, even better, deny the right to strike on grounds that the BART strike, or any strike for that matter, “would create a substantial and imminent threat to public safety.” If it is determined, and the Chronicle’s piece aims to drum up public support for it if a strike is deemed an act of terrorism or a threat to the public, workers face serious charges or worse, perhaps jail time. Most importantly though, the union hierarchy will face jail times and fines or their property taken.  This is who the threat is directed at, the weakest link in the union chain.

In the Wisconsin events, all the concessions that affected their rank and file were agreed to by the leadership of the unions and their allies in the Democratic Party.  The only issues they opposed were the elimination of dues check off, where the employers collect the members’ dues for them, and the right to bargain which eliminates the officialdom’s role as negotiators even though they willingly negotiate their members rights and benefits away. These are two issues that involve revenue, one for the officialdom the other for the Democrats who receive hundreds of millions of union members dollars at election time.

The Chronicle is a liberal bourgeois rag so it selects its words carefully. Its aim is undercut the strong pro-Union and liberal attitude among its readership by implanting the idea (after months of propaganda about how overpaid and greedy BART workers are) that the strike really does put the public in imminent danger.  After all, if you can’t get to work it’s taking food off your table, it’s an attack on the family.

We have witnessed over the past period savage attacks on the poor, the disabled, and the wages and benefits of better unionized workers.  We have seen fire stations shut down, access to health care and supplemental benefits curtailed.  People lost their homes, driven out of them by sheriffs on behalf of the bankers.  We read every day about fraud and corruption on the stock exchange and the embezzling of billions by the 1% and corporate powers.What is this activity but one that harms the public? But there's the public and the public. It is not workers and the middle class public the bosses refer to when they use such terms.

Surely, shutting down a fire station puts the public in danger. The 1% and their politicians clearly see it as a danger of sorts as they forbid firefighter to strike. Firefighters can’t strike but fire stations can be closed by the dictate of politicians, local state and federal as society finds itself "awash with cash" and profits galore not to mention the bank bailouts.

The truth is that the bosses and the politicians in the two Wall Street Parties are not concerned with how strikes affect the working public or our community access to health care or a crucial service like the fire department.  The poor, the disabled, young people and the elderly are already affected in terrible ways by the cuts in social services and highly inadequate mass transit. As I pointed out in other piece about a BART strike, it is the affect it has on profits. BART carries workers to the workplace for the owners of capital and the labor process (the boss). The workplace is the source of profits; it’s where profits are born. It is the disruption of business and profit making that they are concerned about.

We must not be fooled by their propaganda about strikes, lazy workers or welfare recipients and on and on. It’s clear they are determined to make it illegal for BART workers to strike in the future if they can. This would be a huge setback for all workers and the middle class.  If they attempt to use the courts to prevent a strike, the entire labor movement and its allies must be mobilized to violate such anti-worker laws.

To accomplish this,  leadership of the BART unions need to correct a major flaw in their approach. We cannot counter this ideological offensive by the 1% through their media with general statements about how an attack on BART workers is an attack on us all although it is. The union negotiators must also be the communities’ negotiators. As organized workers we cannot limit our demands to issues that only affect us.  In today’s Chronicle piece there are two columns at the end of it under the title “Talking Points”. There are two sub headings, one on the left in bold that says: BART  The right column has the sub heading Unions.

In the “Unions” column the talking points with one exception are all about BART workers, what they have given up and what they need.  Even the exception, “safety protections” applies mostly to the safety of workers.

What is missing is talking points that affect the public. There would be an entirely different game being played if added to the issues that affect the members were issues that affect the working public like:

Half fare for welfare recipients and the unemployed

Free travel on all transit for seniors

Massive increase in bus routes

Increased permanent hiring at union rates and benefits.

This sort of thing is what’s missing and what would draw the rest of the working class and the community in to this battle with the right strategy.  What the general public needs should also be "talking points" but these issues are not on the negotiating table and they should be. This makes uniting with the communities concrete.

The above is a small example to illustrate my point but we can’t expect people to sacrifice and do it willingly simply because it’s the “moral” thing to do.  We are talking bread and butter issues here. People are hurting for all sorts of reason, a strike will disrupt people's lives, that what a strike does, especially for those involved in it,  but if other workers and the community are involved and see that their involvement can lead to material gains it's worth it. Either we pay, or the 1% pays and we can make them pay if we build our forces and have the correct strategy and tactics.

Facts For working People has produced a flier for the rally in Oakland today that expresses our views in more detail (Oscar Grant/Frank Ogawa Plaza 5 pm). If you would like that flier and most importantly, if you can distribute it as a hard copy or e mail it to your lists or friends please do so. Contact me if you know me or the other folks who write regularly or send a request to this blog’s e mail address at: we_know_whats_up@yahoo.com

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What Needs to be Added to My SF Chron op ed piece on BART struggle

by Jack Gerson

Today's San Francisco Chronicle is running an opinion piece by me on the BART struggle  (it's on the op ed page, page A8 -- if you're an online subscriber, you can read it at sfchronicle.com, and I'm including the full text at the end of this post). I wrote the piece to try to get facts out and build Thursday's BART support rally (5pm at Oakland's Ogawa Plaza). But more needs to be said than could be said in those 451 words.

The op ed piece opens with a paragraph on Wisconsin. But while Wisconsin was a massive upsurge, the fact is that the Wisconsin workers lost. The union leadership – including the state president of the Wisconsin teachers’ union, the head of the Madison-area labor council (Kevin Gundlach’s predecessor as head of the South Central Labor Counci), and most of the rest – told  protestors to clear the streets and go petition to recall Republican state legislators and campaign for their Democratic opponents.

As the opinion piece says, ILWU Local 10 did shut down all Bay Area ports in solidarity with Madison on April 4, 2011. That graphic statement of solidarity resounded around the country. But much as another one-day port shutdown during the next BART strike would be welcome, it alone won’t be sufficient. More than one day will be needed, and more militant labor-community solidarity will be needed. That won't happen by putting faith in Democratic Party politicians and going back to business as usual, as happened in Wisconsin. How can we win? I don't have a blueprint, but I do have some thoughts:

First: a very big turnout by rank and file workers  and community at Thursday’s rally can be an important first step. So I think that it is important to really work at mobilizing for the rally. It’s important to get the word to rank and file workers, and to get it out to the whole working class community – employed, unemployed, and underemployed – and explain why the BART strike is in all of our interest. That’s what the op ed piece tried to do.

But that rally will just be blowing off steam unless the rank and file of key unions insist that their unions honor the picket lines in a next BART strike -- especially ATU 192, the AC Transit bus drivers. ATU 192 really ought to walk out with BART workers. 

There simply is no excuse for not honoring the lines.  Rank and file of AFSCME 3993, a smaller BART worker local, just set the example for that: they removed their president as their chief negotiator because she had told them to cross picket lines during the 4-day BART strike, and yesterday she resigned as their president. That's real rank and file solidarity, and that together with mass community support is what will be needed to win the BART struggle. In fact what's needed is a coordinated strike by all the BART unions as well as the AC Transit unions, and a joint strike committee to facilitate coordination and cooperation and to maximize the control of the strike by rank and file transit workers.

Further, the BART unions really need to embrace demands in the interest of the whole community -- employed, unemployed, and underemployed -- starting with free transit and more service to low-income communities. As my op Ed piece explains, the money for that is there, from the developers and corporations that rake in super profits from BART expansion raising their property values while paying virtually nothing in additional taxes and zero to BART.  This really is about the attacks on all of us. And that means that the strike committees need to work closely with the community and incorporate community militancy and militants directly into the strike.

A working class surge can stop austerity in its tracks right here in the Bay Area. That will have to come most of all from the rank and file, who in the unions and in the communities need to be prepared to do what AFSCME 3993 did -- hold their leaders accountable and throw them out when they act like sellouts. And more: they have to construct rank and file organizations -- caucuses, in the unions -- ready to lead in action. Joint strike committees are essential to  a winning strike, and they ought to provide a basis for real class struggle caucuses emerging from the strike that work with and embrace classwide social issues as well as union struggles.

Here's the text of my SF Chronicle op ed piece:

Labor makes a stand - first in Wisconsin, now BART

Jack Gerson

Two years ago, Wisconsin public workers and services were under assault. Hundreds of thousands of workers converged on the state capital, Madison, to fight austerity cuts proposed by Gov. Scott Walker.

The International Longshore Workers Union Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports in solidarity with the Wisconsin struggle. Now BART workers and the Bay Area are in the crosshairs of the national labor struggle, and Wisconsin South Central Labor Council President Kevin Gundlach has pledged solidarity with BART workers.

The BART unions' temporary work agreement ends Sunday night and a new strike is likely. During the BART strike in early July, media coverage suggested these were "greedy workers" making life miserable for the public and jeopardizing the economy. That's not what I found.

Workers told me, "We're fighting for all of us, to say 'No more cuts.' "

I'm convinced they are.

Four years ago, the unions agreed to wage and hiring freezes that saved BART about $100 million. Compared to 2009, BART has fewer workers; work-related injuries have increased. Those concessions were made in bad times. Now times are good (BART projects a $125 million-a-year surplus for 10 years). But management demands more concessions, seeking cuts to pensions, health care and compensation. BART management wants to jeopardize rider safety by cutting vehicle safety inspectors.

BART unions want a three-year contract with better safety conditions, no more cuts to pensions or health care and modest pay increases to keep them on par with the Bay Area's cost of living. The money's there, more than enough to improve safety and increase pay. Even a modest levy on developers and corporations, whose property values soar when BART expands, could reduce or eliminate fares.

Transit strikes make getting around a pain in the neck. But who's causing the pain? BART spent $399,000 on negotiator Thomas Hock, who has provoked strikes in several cities.

Wall Street and banks want to privatize and squeeze profits out of everything Americans have won through generations of struggle. We must fight back.

It will take solidarity from AC Transit and port workers, City College of San Francisco workers, teachers and students, city and county workers, nurses and postal workers, the unemployed and the underemployed. All of us.

The Bay Area has a proud tradition of labor and community unity going back to the 1934 general strike. The rank-and-file of AFSCME 3993, angered by their president, who directed them to cross BART strikers' picket lines, removed her as their chief negotiator in the BART dispute.

Let's turn the tide on austerity. Business depends on BART to deliver their workers and their customers. If BART workers shut it down and win a decent contract, it'll be a victory for us all.

Rally to support BART workers

Who: Called by Amalgamated Transit Union Locals 1555 and 192, Service Employees International Union 1021, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees 3993, International Longshore Workers Union 10

Where: Frank Ogawa Plaza, at Broadway and 14th St., Oakland

When: 5 p.m., Thursday

Jack Gerson, a retired Oakland public schoolteacher, lives in Oakland and rides BART.

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A BART Strike can be won with other unions and the communities and usher in a new era.

The power of labor. Let's put it to good use

by Richard Mellor

Afscme local 444, retired

 "Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table." George Schultz

I went to a meeting at the ATU hall a couple of nights ago.  It was a meeting called by ATU local 1555 for the purpose of building solidarity between unions and the community as the 30- day cooling off period that halted the 4 and a half day strike of BART workers will be up in a week or so.

An official from ATU 1555 spoke of the $100 million in concessions workers have already given but as is usually the case, the more willingly we make concessions the more aggressively the bosses come back for more originally demanding a 12% pay cut and the elimination of important work rules after years of a hiring freeze and no raises.

An attack on BART workers is an attack on all workers was the message which is true. The bosses are attacking a unionized section of the working class with relatively decent wages and benefits compared to many of our class brothers and sisters, as defeating BART workers is but a stepping stone to further attacks on the less organized sections of the class, the youth, the poor, the disabled. BART, or transit workers in general occupy an important position as workers in that stoppages in mass transit have a serious impact on economic activity and therefore profits. The bosses don’t care about disrupting the travel plans of the public going to visit friends, relatives, or to do a little shopping, if they did they wouldn’t savage public services including mass transit, they would expand on it and make it affordable. Profits are made through the labor process, in the workplace. Getting workers (Labor power) to work is crucial if profit is to be made.

We must “Let the public hear our message” the ATU official said to those of us present before moving on to the logistics of organizing the solidarity rally. Fortunately, someone from the floor asked what the union’s message to the public was and shouldn’t we discuss this before logistical questions.  Moist of us in attendance were there to help get the public to the rally, surely, what we are offering the public is the meat of the matter.

The official was a bit reluctant as it would open up a “philosophical” discussion he said could take a long time, but those in attendance clearly thought this was important and 20 minutes was allotted for us to hear what the actual message to the public was, a message that is designed to counter the massive propaganda against the Transit workers in the mass media and win the public to our side.

Unfortunately there was very little coming from the Union leadership that anyone could tell the public that would encourage them to become active in and drawn to the BART workers struggle as their own.  Appealing to someone in a $10 an hour job with no benefits to actively support BART workers meaning supporting a strike with all the disruption and sacrifice that entails, merely on the basis that it’s an attack on all of us is too abstract.  Let’s say the community gets involved and the Union leadership manages on the basis of this support to halt some of the most damaging concessions at the table and decides to settle; what is there for the community?  The community would feel betrayed.

Union approach
The strike deadline is approaching but there is still time to build something through this solidarity rally that could have a real affect on the balance of class forces and open up an offensive of our own. I do not think that the BART workers and ATU 1555 can defeat the bosses alone, no union can. I would like to share my thoughts on this:

I think the first thing the leadership of ATU 1555 should do is call for a mass meeting between all the BART locals, AFSCME and SEIU to prepare for a strike at the end of the cooling off period and for the purpose of forming a joint strike committee.  Included in this call should be ATU’s sister local ATU 192 that represents AC transit workers, the drivers that operate the bus system. This local could have legally struck with the BART workers but the leadership chose not to.  I have already stated that I think this was a mistake and hurt both parties. City of Oakland workers should also be invited to participate in joint strike committee; they are also represented by SEIU 1021 that represents BART station Agents and janitorial staff. The workers that operate the buses that transport severely disabled people are paid less with fewer benefits than operators at AC Transit and San Francisco's MUNI. Their outfit is owned by the firm that the union buster brought in to negotiate BART's contract works for.  They are Teamsters and should be brought in to this campaign in order to bring their wages and benefits in to line with ATU and SEIU members or all will be driven to the lower level. We can defeat this offensive but not alone.

Local 1555 should make sure that this call is made public through press releases regardless of the reaction of the leadership of the other unions. Let the public and the members of other unions, especially those included in the call read about this in the media. There are also other public sector unions in contract talks and a serious approach like this will get an echo among many rank and file members tired of years of concessions.

We are negotiating in the working public’s interest.

I was a rank and file negotiator for my local, AFSCME 444 EBMUD blue collar workers in 1997 (read an assessment of that negotiations we wrote at the time here) We formed a solidarity committee and at the table one of our demands was for 50 union jobs as opposed to the company’s phony community training ventures, part-time work with no benefits and lower wages to make board members look good. This program undermined union pay and benefits and rarely led to full time jobs.  In addition we had as a proposal a demand for a shorter workweek, we never dropped that demand but I think we left on the table a proposal to reduce the workweek 2 and a half hours. 

In the first meeting the company’s negotiators told us that we couldn’t demand jobs, that hiring was management’s business. We told them in no uncertain terms that they don’t tell us what to demand; we demand what we need as workers and what the communities we serve need as communities of workers. In our rallies and public events we always made jobs for the community an issue.  The solidarity committee leafleted the welfare offices, the unemployment office, and other public sector workplaces like the Berkeley city workers yard and the city of Oakland corporation yard on Enterprise Way.  We got a good contract that year although the solidarity committee was unable to bring in huge numbers of members of other locals and members of the community.  This was due to resources and not a failed approach.  The heads of the Bay Area labor movement through the labor councils should be doing this in every dispute rather than spending members’ hard earned money getting Democrats elected to boards and political office who immediately turn on us in the interests of “shared sacrifice”.

In every dispute, especially involving public sector unions, the proposals at the table cannot be limited only to issues that affect the members of that local. We have an obligation to negotiate for the public as well. 

Coming out of a mass meeting and formation of a joint strike committee the transit unions should go on the offensive and place new demands on the table demands that relate to their own members, but also that affect the public. A solidarity campaign can then leaflet areas and institutions where these potential allies can be found, Here are some examples I think would draw the public in to this struggle, not just as passive supporters but as activists with representatives on the joint strike committee.

·      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

These are just a couple of simple examples. We have numerous articles on this blog about the need for jobs and a massive infrastructure spending project to be paid for by ending all wars and occupations, $10 billion year incomes for those people who clip coupons for a living like hedge fund managers and other speculators and directing capital in to social needs.

There is no shortage of money in society; it is not our job to nickel and dime one section of the working class in order to give a few minor concessions to another. This is the bosses’ strategy that divides us and weakens us.  We do not believe it is our job to scramble around finding ways to divvy up an ever-dwindling pie they offer us. We have the money and we know where we need to put it. The Berkeley Express had a very good article about the massive increase in corporate property values since the BART rail system, a public project, was installed. It points out that BART’s 2013 budget shows that 57% of the agency’s funding comes from fares, and 30% of it from sales tax in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties. Property taxes account for less than 5%.  Taxes funding BART are regressive. These billions of dollars of increased property values are not taxed appropriately.  We published the Express piece here

A strong, committed and united working class can make some gains and transform the national mood a process that can lead to further victories and increased political awareness.   One of the greatest obstacles we have to overcome is the view in US society that we can’t win, that we can’t change what is. This is the bosses’ message and it is one that is unfortunately adopted by the heads or organized labor from the top down.

I am not raising these issues simply to point fingers.  But to raise what I genuinely believe is a way forward, a way to throw back the capitalist offensive and begin one of our own.  The concession will not stop as the crisis of their system and global competition is forcing the US capitalist class to drive us back to conditions that existed before the great uprising that led to the CIO in the 1930’s and the Civil Rights movement that followed it.

To make appeals to the public for support against the lies and propaganda of the bosses, we have to have something concrete to offer as opposed to generalities and abstract slogans about unity and how we are all under attack etc.  A call for solidarity is a good thing but solidarity around what?  Some of us are under attack more severely than others and would think they’d died and gone to heaven to get a job at a public utility. If we don’t want to have the bosses’ give them our jobs, we need to be in the forefront of the battle for jobs for all, a $20 an hour minimum wage, health care, education etc. 

Finally and of extreme importance is the responsibility of the union leaderships in this struggle. These leaderships control the unions and structures through which we, the union members have to function. They control the apparatus that has considerable resources; twelve million members, a full time apparatus and financial and other resources. Presidents of the United States do not attend National Union Conventions because there is no power there; they attend to ensure that this potential power is kept subdued. These union leaderships have to lead. It is up to them to organize in the unions at all levels, in the workplaces, in the communities, in the schools and colleges to build a movement to fight for the demands we outline above. While making sure that these leaderships are pressed to take this action all union activists and members should simultaneously be building activist and fighting caucuses where they work and study. Experience shows that the union leaderships do not take militant action unless they are forced to from below in a way that threatens their positions, power and privileges.

The union leadership at the highest levels should be speaking out most emphatically against racism and the ongoing murder of black youth by the police and racist thugs like Zimmerman.  A defender of Zimmerman threw in my face the black on black crime in the urban ghettos (a good piece on that here) which is in itself an issue.  But what is the cause of this?  It is poverty, police brutality, lack of opportunity and generations on unemployment and welfare, not enough to die on and not enough to live on. It is the disgraceful incarceration of black males disenfranchising them permanently from society even when they get out. It is the product of a racist war on a whole section of our society, a divide and rule strategy to weaken us all. It is not a black thing. If the conditions that existed in this community exited in society as a whole the experts would declare a national state of emergency and we are moving closer to that scenario.  The economic war against all of us is the cause of the crisis in society and the intensified crisis among the poor and racially oppressed.

"Brethren we conjure you...not to believe a word of what is being said about your interests and those of your employers being the same. Your interests and theirs are in a nature of things, hostile and irreconcilable.  Then do not look to them for relief...Our salvation must, through the blessing of God, come from ourselves.  It is useless to expect it from those whom our labors enrich." * 

* 1840's appeal from New England laborers to their fellows to abandon the idea that the employers/capitalists would solve working people's problems.  Philip Foner History of the Labor Movement Vol. 1 p192

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