WASHINGTON, DC, April 9—At the Metro transit system in D.C. (WMATA), PLP is fighting back and leading the struggle against management’s cutbacks, racist disciplinary procedures, sellout union leaders, and ultimately, capitalism itself.
Today, we joined transit workers in a rally in front of the Jackson Graham Building (management headquarters) to protest a forum on rider assaults on bus operators. The forum was co-sponsored by management and traitorous union misleaders.
For years, transit workers in D.C. have been facing cutbacks and attacks from the management bosses. A program of austerity has threatened pensions and wages, which were won primarily through the militant communist-led wildcat strike of the 1970s. Metro bosses have also intensified attacks on workers through a new racist discipline matrix that primarily targets Black workers, and a vicious new background check policy that reaches back decades and has led to multiple firings of veteran drivers.  Recently, workers who have acted in self-defense after being attacked by bus riders are themselves fired or otherwise punished! These racist assaults are part and parcel of the broader capitalist scheme to intimidate workers and rob them of any gains won and defended through direct class struggle. Our enemy is not the riders, but this capitalist system. Riders and workers must unite to challenge the transit bosses!
To throw salt on the open wound, WMATA management and their cronies and class-collaborators in the union have called for ridiculous policy reforms to address the string of rider-instigated attacks on bus operators and other workers. Management has suggested placing cops on buses to monitor behavior and has even printed pamphlets urging workers to practice restraint when dealing with riders. All this, as if workers are not capable of defending themselves and intelligent enough to know how to act in confrontational situations! More importantly, the bosses are trying to pit us against our natural allies, the working-class riders, while fomenting a false unity with our class enemies: the bosses and the cops.
Anger was high at the rally. One bus operator said that we should go inside and disrupt the meeting. The bus operator correctly pointed out that workers have the numbers and power to confront capitalist bosses and union misleaders.
KKKops Off Buses
Throughout the rally, we led militant chants such as “bosses can’t profit when workers strike, shut it down, shut it tight!” We demanded that WMATA address more fundamental issues regarding the assaults on bus operators. We refused cops on buses. Such a policy would entrench the blatantly racist role of police officers as overseers of the working class. The rally instead called for fully subsidized transit fare as a solution to many transit problems, including the assaults on operators. If the bosses were serious about working-class safety and health, transportation would be free. Not only would such a reform benefit the working class of DC, but separating the job of fare collection from that of actually operating the bus means that riders would have little incentive to attack operators for problems regarding their fare. Of course, the bosses’ refusal only exposes their role, which is to exploit and divide the working class.
Another rally was planned that is intended to stop traffic. We will continue to fight for better working conditions and an end to racist and sexist attacks., PLP will continue to work with these workers to turn their reform struggles into the fight for a communist world.