CWA 1180 - Solidarity Works

Transit workers "shut 'em down"

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Check the TWU Local 100 strike website for updates, and check back to Local 1180's home page for new information about ways to show your support. Meanwhile, talk to your friends and coworkers about why you support the strike. If transit workers are under attack now, will they come after us next?

Show Up
Check here for a list of picket locations where you can come by to show support or bring food and hot coffee to the strikers.

Email
Click here to send an email to Governor Pataki, telling him to stop his offensive attacks on the union and push for a fair contract. Click here to email Mayor Bloomberg, who has called transit workers "selfish" criminals simply for defending their rights.

December 2005

At a rally outside of Governor Pataki's office on a cold Monday night, December 19, hundreds of transit workers chanted "What do we want?" "A contract." "When do we want it?" "Now." "And if we don't get it?" "Shut 'em down!"

It was no empty threat . As of early the morning of December 20, Transit Workers Local 100 is out on strike. "From the beginning, the MTA approached negotiations in bad faith, demanding arbitration before even trying to resolve the contract," says Local 100 president Roger Toussaint. "The MTA knew that reducing health and pension standards at the authority would be unacceptable to our union. They knew there was no good economic reason for their hard line on this issue--not with a billion dollar surplus. They went ahead anyway, supported by the Bloomberg administration, which wants to overrun municipal labor unions and all City workers with down pressed wages and gutted health benefits and pension plans."

The MTA's final offer, of 3 percent, 4 percent, and 3.5 percent, is really no raise at all, with inflation running at 3.5 percent in the Northeast. And in exchange for this 0 percent real raise, the transit workers have been asked to accept cuts to their retirement security, including an increase in the retirement age for new workers from 55 to 62. If the transit workers accepted this contract, it would set the stage for the erosion of wages and retirement benefits for all city workers.

Transit workers do thankless and dangerous work. Bus drivers face hostile customers and murderous traffic all day. Subway workers work in dark, rat-infested subway tunnels. A mistake by a New York City transit worker can be a life-or-death mistake for riders or for themselves. Since World War II,
132 track workers have been electrocuted or killed by trains in the New York subways, 21 in the last two decades. Basic necessities, like the ability to go to the bathroom, are a luxury. So are days off. Every year, transit workers sleep on cots to wait for the chance to request Thanksgiving Day off in person 30 days in advance, as required by their contract.

As Toussaint says, "This is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement; over the erosion or eventual elimination of health benefit coverage for working people. And it is a fight over dignity and respect on the job. ...We call on all good willed New Yorkers, the labor community, and all working people to recognize that our fight is their fight, and to rally in our support."

Practical tips

City workers should try to get to their nearest job location; if management is telling you that you must go to your usual job site, and you're unable to reach it, call Local 1180 at 212-226-6565. A memo from the Human Resources Administration dated December 14 specifically says that managers "with multiple locations will have discretion to assign staff to different locations." It says that employees should allow extra time for travel and are expected to get to work on time, but "lateness...caused by transportation circumstances beyond the ability of the tardy employee to control shall be excused."

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