The New York transit strike: A new stage in the class struggle

In no other country is the existence of social class, not to mention class struggle, so vehemently denied as in the United States. But in no other country are the class divisions so deep. And nowhere else is class war practiced with a viciousness that equals that of the American ruling class. It has taken less than 24 hours for the strike of transit workers to expose before the eyes of the world the brutal reality of American society.

The strike exemplifies the unbridgeable class divisions in American society, in which a corrupt and reactionary financial oligarchy utilizes the most brutal methods to smash all resistance to its lust for profits and personal wealth. One has only to look at the cast of characters leading the assault on transit workers to get a sense of the real social issues at stake in this conflict.

First, there is Michael Bloomberg, who spent lavishly out of his vast personal fortune of more than $5 billion to buy the mayoralty. He had the effrontery to go before cameras Tuesday to denounce bus and subway workers as “selfish,” “thuggish,” “disgraceful” and “shameful.”

Second, there is real estate mogul Peter Kalikow, with a net worth of more than $1 billion, who is negotiating on behalf of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

Third, leading the anti-transit worker hate campaign of the gutter media is Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the New York Post and Fox News. His personal fortune is estimated to be approximately $8 billion.

These individuals pocket in one day more than even the highest paid transit worker takes home in a year.

These are the people demanding that transit workers—whose wages barely cover basic necessities in New York, one of the most expensive cities in the world—sacrifice their wages, pensions and benefits in order to meet the interest payments to rich investors, who augment their fortunes by purchasing high-yield MTA bonds.

The Bloomberg administration and MTA have secured multiple injunctions against the transit workers. Under the provisions of New York state’s anti-labor Taylor Law, each individual worker faces fines of two day’s pay for every day on the picket line. The city, meanwhile, has convinced a judge to impose $1 million a day in fines against Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents the bus and subway workers.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/tran-d21.shtml