NYC SCHOOL BUS DRIVERS STRIKE-UNIONS SCABBING AGAINST UNIONS

For over three weeks, 9,000 New York City school bus drivers, matrons and mechanics have been engaged in a courageous battle. Their struggle has now reached a turning point, with private school bus companies returning bids that are expected to eliminate job and wage protections in place for nearly half a century. 

In their struggle, the striking bus workers represent the entire working class. Teachers, firefighters, transit, sanitation, hospital and other city workers know they have a major stake in the outcome of the current conflict. Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaks and acts on behalf of a corporate and financial elite determined to make the working population pay for the crisis of the capitalist system. Among strikers there is a growing awareness that the struggle must become the starting point for a far broader mobilization of the working class. Despite the slanders of the media and its news blackout, strikers enjoy support from parents and other working people who are glad to see someone finally standing up to the Bloombergs of this world. But the struggle is in serious danger. The February 10 demonstration has not been called to organize a more powerful mobilization against strikebreaking and scabbing, but to let off steam and line up workers behind the big business Democratic Party politicians with whom the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) is aligned. The union hopes and plans to shut down the strike and send workers back without a contract or the slightest concession from Bloomberg. Workers must reject this effort! Accepting a “cooling off” period would be a devastating defeat for the strike and only encourage the mayor to escalate the attack on all workers. The union has repeatedly made clear it wants to help Bloomberg “cut costs,” code words for imposing sharp wage and benefit concessions. Workers have been left entirely in the dark as to what “costs” the union is prepared to cut. The ATU has aims that are distinct from and opposed to the interests of the workers—above all, to get Bloomberg to preserve the union’s “seat at the table.” Union officials are concerned that the opening up of contract bids to low-cost, transnational bus giants like First Student would disrupt their entrenched relations with the current bus companies. However, the ATU already collects dues from members working part-time and with no benefits for First Student on Long Island, and it is prepared to do the same thing in New York City. The union simply wants to assure itself of a piece of the action in restructuring school bus transportation and is using the workers as pawns to that end. ATU officials fear, above all, that the strike will break out of their grip and develop into a wider struggle against the political and economic system. The assault on the jobs and rights of New York City bus workers is part and parcel of a nationwide, corporate-driven attack on public education and social services, which has seen the closing of schools, massive teacher layoffs and increasing privatization. Sweeping budget cuts threaten mass transit, health care and core social programs such as Social Security and Medicare. While the billionaire Bloomberg promotes this anti-working class agenda with all the arrogance of someone who believes he owns the city, these Strike week four 9 February 2013 Mobilize the working class to defend school bus strike NYC School Bus Strike Newsletter School bus strikers demonstrating at the Department of Education Statement of the Socialist Equality Party continued on page 4 02 Strikers throughout the city spoke to the WSWS about their thoughts on the strike. Griselda commented on the attacks on bus drivers that Bloomberg is planning. “I have been working this job for 18 years, making $16 an hour. If they get rid of the EPP, my wages will be cut from $612 a week to $190. I have two kids in college and I have a baby who is deaf. I just can’t afford to live off of $7.50 an hour, but that’s what they want us to do.” She also commented on the real culprits attacking the children. “Bloomberg is the number one criminal. We are experienced drivers and we know what we are doing. The kids respect us. We have been trained for this. Bloomberg doesn’t care. He would just hire people off the street who don’t know what they are doing. We will strike until June if we have to.” One striking driver from the Bronx provided the WSWS with photographs of police officers directly scabbing on striking mechanics, attempting to make repairs to a broken-down school bus sent across their picket lines. “Bloomberg wants to be in charge of everything,” said the bus driver. “He’s even got the cops fixing broken-down buses to scab on the mechanics.” “He’s bringing out the police not just to watch us, but to try and keep the buses running,” he added. “But can they really fix buses?” Philomena, a matron for 15 years at the Staten Island division of the Atlantic Express company, spoke to the WSWS about the buses being driven by members of other unions. “Sixty-eight scab buses went out from here yesterday morning. These are the drivers we work with, but they are in a different union. The union is United Service Workers Local 55. “They are being harassed and threatened for striking with us by their boss Dominic Gatto. It was on the news yesterday. The drivers were told that they had to come to work yesterday or they would lose their jobs. One driver, Anthony Di Sano was fired because he refused to cross our picket line.” A driver at the Atlantic Express depot in Flushing, with 13 years of service, said, “We don’t know anything. We’re not getting any feedback from the union. We’re just going on speculation and don’t know the meaning of what is going on. “Mayor Bloomberg is a schmuck; he’s an oppressor of the working class. They want to get rid of us and hire less. It’s very painful for us. This is all about economic issues. We are here fighting together, standing in the cold, to defend our job security. “If we give up and go back to work, we’ll be handing Bloomberg a victory. We need to keep this fight going and get the firefighters and teachers involved because they are going to be next. Right now they are picking on us because they think we are weak and they have laws against other workers striking. “Back in 1979, during the last school bus strike, the unions were still unions and they fought for us. If we go down, the conditions for the top union leaders aren’t going to change. They are still going to get the same pay, convention trips, cars and bonuses. “Bloomberg is pushing charter schools and testing to evaluate teachers. He says there is no money and has to cut us to save. But school transportation is only $1.1 billion out of a total school budget of $24 billion. “All the politicians, including Obama, are for the rich. The news media is controlled by the big corporations too and they aren’t saying anything about us.” A striker who asked to remain anonymous was critical of the union: “The unions aren’t doing anything to support us. They are just showing up whenever they feel like it. They are not telling us anything.” —Published by the World Socialist Web Site WSWS.ORG Members of the NYPD acting as scabs against striking mechanics NYC SCHOOL BUS STRIKE NEWSLETTER Striking New York school bus workers speak Greek government uses martial law to suppress strikes The Greek government imposed martial law on striking ferry workers and mobilized the police to break picket lines. The ferry workers had gone on strike to protest job losses and wage cuts and demand the payment of overdue wages. Some of the workers have received no wages for months. This is the fourth time that the Greek government has imposed martial law to force strikers back to work. Military law was used previously against truck drivers in 2010, against striking refuse workers in 2011, and against subway workers in January. The subway workers were forced back to work by means of “civil mobilization”, which effectively conscripted them into the armed forces. The attack on the right to strike in Greece is being carried out in collaboration with and support from other European governments and European Union institutions. The so-called “troika”—comprised of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB)—monitors every measure taken by the Greek government to ensure that its austerity dictates are carried out. See it at: http://bit.ly/busworkers Video: Striking New York City bus workers speak on their struggle Join the fight to build rank-and-file committees! For more information contact: sep@socialistequality.com Workers must have a new fighting leadership! or call 646-389-9690 03 —Published by the World Socialist Web Site WSWS.ORG NYC SCHOOL BUS STRIKE NEWSLETTER School bus workers fight for job security and wages: 1979 and today continued on page 4 By Fred Mazelis The current strike of New York City school bus drivers and matrons is not the first time they have had to fight to defend their job security, wages and benefits. In 1979 these workers conducted a 13-week strike against the city and the bus companies. An examination of the events of 1979 only underscores the transformed role of the unions and their unwillingness and inability today to wage a similar fight against the assault being carried out by the Bloomberg administration and the rest of the political establishment. In mid-February of 1979, almost 33 years ago, the school bus drivers began a strike in opposition to the city’s plans under then-mayor Ed Koch to use competitive bidding to destroy the guarantees the drivers had to keep their jobs, wages and conditions even if new contractors won the contract to provide bus service. Amalgamated Transit Union locals 1181 and 1061, representing the striking drivers and matrons, reported that the workers refused the union’s requests that they return to their jobs. The Koch administration, demanding that the workers pay for the city’s fiscal crisis, obtained an injunction in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn. The workers, however, defied the injunction, even after it was served on individual school bus drivers and matrons. When the union requested they return to work, the attitude of the workers as reported by the Local 1181 president was “You talk, we’ll walk,” a phrase that summed up their militant struggle. In the media, the walkout was referred to as a “wildcat” strike. At the same time, some of the workers took action to stop buses and taxis from scabbing on the strike. Mayor Koch, the reactionary politician who died just a week ago and was eulogized by every Democratic politician for many miles around, called the strikers “goons” and “bastards.” At a news conference, Koch falsely accused the workers, exactly as Bloomberg is doing today, of abandoning the schoolchildren and using them as pawns. Of course it was the city that was holding the students hostage, not the drivers. Koch swore he would never negotiate with the strikers unless they first went back Read the World Socialist Web Site every day The most crucial political weapon for the working class wsws.org The NYC school bus strike in 1979 [Photo: Staten Island Advance/Landov]to their jobs. By early March, however, the city’s position appeared to weaken. The mayor suggested that Bruce McIver, the director of the city’s Office of Municipal Relations, might mediate the dispute. The strikers continued their fight for job security for another two months. Thousands walked across the Brooklyn Bridge in the middle of the week for maximum impact and maximum appeal to other sections of the working class. Mass picketing stopped scabs and strikers even blocked traffic by abandoning a streetful of cars in front of school buildings. A settlement was reached in the second week of May. Milton Mollen, then the chief justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, served as mediator in working out the final agreement. The workers got a measure of job security in the Employee Protection Provision (EPP), which codified some of the procedures under which veteran employees had been guaranteed their positions and wage levels in cases where a new bus company became their employer. The 1979 strike took place just one year after the coal miners had defied Jimmy Carter and a Taft-Hartley injunction. A year later New York City’s transit workers also defied antistrike legislation, the Taylor Law. In 1979 the school bus workers defied the courts. In 2013, even after the federal Read the program of the Socialist Equality Party Order your copy at: socialequality.com/program 04 — Anti-worker First Student bus company submitting bid One of the bus companies that has reportedly sent in a bid to the Department of Education is First Student, owned by the multinational transit conglomerate First Group, which also owns Greyhound Bus Company. The largest school transportation provider in the US, First Group has a notorious record of attacking workers. It has recently provoked strikes in New Haven, Connecticut and Portland, Oregon. First Student has long avoided bidding for work in New York City because of the wage and benefit protections that have been in place since 1965 and were defended in the bitter three-month strike in 1979. 

However, it is one of the largest providers in the New York City suburbs of Long Island, where school bus drivers are only guaranteed a six-hour work day, with few or no benefits. These miserable part-time conditions are overseen by ATU Local 1181. As one senior driver told the WSWS, “They only get six hours—or about $90 a day—and have no benefits or company paid pensions. But they still have to pay dues to Local 1181.” This puts into focus the ATU’s offer to help Bloomberg cut costs in New York City. 

The ATU called the strike not to defend drivers but to assure that it can be part of Bloomberg’s restructuring plans and continue to collect dues, no matter how bad the wages and conditions of the workers it allegedly “represents.” National Labor Relations Board declares the strike to be legal, the ATU has offered to return to work. It was the same Milton Mollen, long since retired and now 93 years old, who met with the union and the companies soon after the current strike began. He brought an offer of virtual surrender from ATU Local 1181 to the Bloomberg administration—a proposal to return to work while negotiating “cost savings”—only to be flatly turned down. 

Today, in contrast to the 1979 strike, the workers have been kept isolated, picketing in desolate areas of the city, out of touch with one another. There has been no public meeting for the rank and file. In 1979 there was no scabbing. Other unions did not cross the picket lines, while today the United Service Workers and ATU Local 91 are sending workers across picket lines at Atlantic, Consolidated and some of the other school bus companies. Even mechanics from Local 1181, the same local as the striking drivers, are crossing, told that they must because they have separate contracts and will be fired if they don’t continue to work. In 1979, the union, its well-known corruption notwithstanding, was still a defensive organization, answerable to the rank and file to a certain extent. Today, the leadership negotiates for its own interests, in opposition to the needs of the rank and file, seeking a cut of the profits sweated out of the workers. The 1979 struggle is just one example of the basic truth that nothing was ever achieved except through independent struggle.

 Carrying out such a struggle today requires building new organizations, rank-and-file committees of struggle independent of the ATU and the other unions and based on an entirely new perspective for the unconditional defense of the jobs, living standards and working conditions of all workers. School bus workers fight for job security and wages: 1979 and today continued from page 3 same policies are pursued by Democrats and Republicans at all levels of government, from Barack Obama on down. 

Governor Andrew Cuomo, at Bloomberg’s request, vetoed state legislation in 2011 that mandated the maintenance of the Employee Protection Provision (EPP) in school busing contracts, thereby setting the stage for the current campaign against bus workers. None of the potential candidates for mayor promoted by the ATU as “friends of labor”—Christine Quinn, Bill de Blasio and John Liu—has ever spoken out in direct defense of the right of the bus workers to keep the EPP and maintain their jobs, wages and seniority.

 If the strike broke out of the control of the ATU, those politicians would respond no differently than Democratic Mayor Ed Koch during the 1979 strike, who denounced strikers as “goons” and “bastards” and dispatched correctional vehicles from Rikers Island to scab on the strike. There is a force, however, that can defeat the attacks on the school bus workers. 

It is to the teachers, transit workers and other sections of workers, students and youth that the strikers must now turn. The organization of the strike must be taken out of the hands of the ATU leadership through the establishment of an independent strike committee, democratically controlled by the rank and file. The task of this committee would be first and foremost to turn out to and mobilize the sympathy and support that exists for the strike among millions of working people in the city, across the country and internationally. 

Throughout the globe, the banks and financial institutions are making the working class pay for the crisis of the capitalist system. In every country, social programs are being decimated, wages slashed, retirement ages increased and pensions destroyed, while public assets are diverted into the pockets of the super-wealthy. In every country, the politicians’ refrain is the same: there is no money, even as the stock market and corporate profits—along with the incomes of the rich—soar. 

The New York City school bus strike—which involves workers of many nationalities and ethnic backgrounds—shows the potential for uniting all working people in a common struggle to defend social rights. To do this, the working class needs to be organized as a political force, independently of the big business parties and trade unions that defend them. 

Breaking the economic and political dictatorship of the banks and big business is only possible if workers take political power in their own hands, nationalize the banks and major corporations under the democratic control of working people and reorganize economic life to serve social interests, not the wealthy few. We encourage all workers who see the need to take up this fight to contact the SEP.

Published by the World Socialist Web Site WSWS.ORG NYC SCHOOL BUS STRIKE NEWSLETTER continued from page 1 Mobilize the working class to defend school bus strike Call 646-389-9690 or email sep@socialistequality.com