Peter S Kalikow, Chairman

Metropolitan Transit Authority of New York

Fax No: (212) 878-7030

Dear Mr. Kalikow and members of the board,

The significance of the Transit Workers Union Local 100 strike cannot be underestimated. The workers that keep the trains, buses, subways and transportation systems of New York City running walked out not for themselves alone, but for millions of workers in both the public and private sector jobs who face a desperate future.

In the struggle for security in our later years the Transit Workers Union are heroes and will not be ignored. The Board of the Metropolitan Transit Authority is leading an attack not only on the safety and economic security of the New York City Transit Workers, but on all workers of the world. The promises made for a decent life, financial security, and some personal liberties are to be sacrificed upon the altar of wealth and privilege.

From starbucksunion.org:

As a recipient of support from TWU Local 100 members on our picket lines, it is with great honor that we express our total solidarity with striking transit workers in New York City. We know you are striking not only for your families but also for every working New Yorker.

Corporations, public or private, are concerned with two things: money and power. Since the MTA's last-minute bargaining demand would have saved less money than two day's worth of overtime for cops to patrol struck stations, it follows that power was the element at issue. The two-tier pension scheme the MTA tried to impose had the singular intent of weakening the union. By dividing senior workers from newer workers, two-tier schemes undermine solidarity within a union. They also provide an incentive for the bosses to concoct pretexts to get rid of more senior workers to save money. The supermarket bosses imposed such a two-tier contract on 70,000 striking and locked out grocery workers in 2004. But in 2005, TWU Local 100 and affiliated unions said, "No."

It had to happen eventually.  The working class in the United States of America has been tkaing it in the gut for half a century without effectively mounting a significant counter offense in the class struggle.  Now it looks like the rank & file members of TWU Local #100 in New York City have finally declared that now is the time to declare "Ya Basta!" (Enough is Enough!).

While it is far too early to tell how this will all play out in the upcoming days, the indications are that the defiance of overwhelmingly repressive threats from the capitalists in NYC is a bold step that may be just the shot in the arm that we wage slaves need to finally awaken from a slumber that has lasted far too long already.  As a transit worker myself, I am guardedly optimistic at this point. 

Disclaimer:  Eric Lee's article is reposted here not as an endorsement for iww.org as Labourstart Website of the Year--although iww.org is a candidate, and is mentioned in the article.  It is posted here to emphasize the growing impact that the Internet, labor websites, and labourstart.org have on organized labor.  The Internet--while currently dominated by capitalist interests nevertheless hold enormous potential for those of us fettered by capitalism (at least 99% of humanity) to emancipate ourselves from its yoke.

For the ninth year in a row, LabourStart is once again organizing the Labour Website of the Year competition.

By IWW - Industrial Worker, December 2005

On Nov. 1, Local 810 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters lost an NLRB election for the roughly 300-worker transportation department of New York City internet grocer FreshDirect, LLC. The local had lost an election in 2004 for the same unit. Despite having won the support of over 100 workers who could have been organized into a powerful union presence, Local 810 abandoned the field after that election.

FreshDirect, of course, soon broke the promises it had made during the campaign. Transportation workers grew increasingly dissatisfied, and, in June of this year some of them contacted the IWW's New York City General Membership Branch. New York Wobblies mapped out an ambitious industrial campaign to line up the entire FreshDirect workforce - about 1,200 workers - along with workers in other nearby wholesale and retail foodstuffs establishments. With help from other members of New York's rank-and-file May Day Coalition, the Branch began gathering contacts and agitating for the union.

By Peter Rachleff - Industrial Worker, December 2005

The Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association strike at Northwest Airlines offers a window into class relations and the state of the labor movement in the United States. What we can see through that window is very grim. As key sectors of the U.S. economy continue to struggle with overcapacity, workers are being forced to bear the burden by a ruling elite which is unwilling to give up its perquisites and privileges. The lion's share of productivity increases in the past two decades have gone to capital, while workers have faced wage cuts, higher health care costs, reduced benefits, disappeared pensions, rewritten work rules, and economic insecurity. Unions have been unable to mount an effective counteroffensive against this onslaught, let alone an effective defense.  

By Matt Wilson, Portland - From the Stumptown Wobbly, reprinted in the Industrial Worker, December 2005

This is a story about a situation that happened at my workplace. Ideally, this will add to a conception of what Direct Unionism is, how it exists in everyday situations, and where we can go with it as an organization. This event happened around a year ago. While some of its impacts were immediate, it took me some time to develop an analysis, and to see clearly how this tied in with the development of class-consciousness. At this point I feel that I can look back, analyze the situation and draw out some lessons.

I worked on the sunrise shift at a parcel moving company represented by the Teamsters. At this company, and in this industry in general, every package is timed out to the last minute. Every day lost in not delivering a package costs this company money. The precision of the timing and the workers' role in maintaining the schedule furthers the opportunity for strategic opposition. This was especially true on my shift where the large majority of the packages being unloaded were on the last leg of their journey. These packages are going directly from us to the trucks that deliver things to your home.

By Dan Jakopovich, London - Industrial Worker, December 2005

The recently established London IWW group, which seems to have given a new lease of life to Wobblies in the British Isles, held an IWW centenary celebration at the RampART squatted social centre in East London on 5 November. It was our first public event where the core group, which was established a few months ago, had a general presentation of its ideals, goals and methods.

The high point of the evening was a discussion on building autonomous workers' resistance in London. This was largely centred around trying to draw on previous experiences, such as the Gate Gourmet dispute (See for instance my article "Gate Gourmet: 'not over yet,'" Freedom, 15 October), that have confirmed the importance of militant rank-and-file unionism as the only promising means for annulling the present laws against solidarity strikes. The grassroots democratic model of the Workmates Collective of West London tube workers was also mentioned.