New York City transit workers on brink of class confrontation

There is an unbridgeable gap between the determination of 34,000 bus and subway workers to defend their wages, pensions and working conditions, and the demands of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to rip up the gains won through generations of struggle.

The MTA’s “final offer” includes the use of “broadbanding” to eliminate thousands of jobs, the elimination for new hires of the right to retire at 55 after 25 years’ service, wage increases far below the rate of inflation and other givebacks. The bosses have made their intentions clear, not only by threatening the use of the anti-labor Taylor Law, with its draconian penalties for striking, but also by seeking a new injunction that would penalize workers the sum of $25,000 for the first day off the job, with the fine to double for each additional day on strike.

The leadership of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, having already postponed strike action for four days, has set a new deadline of 12:01 a.m., Tuesday, December 20. Transit workers must insist that the new deadline be adhered to. They must answer the provocations of the MTA with citywide strike action including every member of the union. But they must, above all, recognize that they face a political attack backed up by the full power of the government. Transit workers must answer this with their own political strategy, including the fight to mobilize the support of millions of fellow workers.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/tran-d19.shtml