SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, July 4 — Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) unions — SEIU 1021 and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU 1555) — pulled their picket lines, with personal guidance from International ATU President Larry Hanley. BART workers returned to work with no guarantees (similar to NYC school bus drivers). The Bay Area commute is functioning normally, delivering up to one million workers to the Downtown Business and Finance Corridors of San Francisco. This is one more way the Internationals did the bidding of the corporate powers who demand uninterrupted profits.
Despite limits on the strike set by business unionism, the Bay Area Council (employers’ think tank) estimated that the strike cost Bay Area bosses $73 million/day in lost productivity and millions more as workers stayed home instead of going shopping and to restaurants. Productivity means profits under capitalism and business unionism means profit interests comes before workers’ needs.
The ATU and the Alameda Labor Councils sabotaged the opportunity for over 4,000 striking BART and AC transit workers to reverse four years of $140 million in concessions! The ATU/SEIU Internationals are firmly in control.
The local union leadership and ATU/SEIU Internationals are junior partners in the Employers’ Strike Solidarity Pact:
About 600 ATU workers were pumped up on Sunday, June 30, thinking they’d be joining ATU 1555/SEIU 1021 members on strike the next day;
Then the ATU ordered Local 192 leaders to continue negotiating because AC bosses threw a bone (returning pay for the first day of sick leave). They hadn’t negotiated in good faith for three months. With the excuse, “we weren’t at impasse,” the leaders made AC workers scabs and gave up their biggest bargaining chip;
“We’re giving the commute about a C-plus,” said John Goodwin, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transit Commission. “If AC Transit hadn’t been running,” Goodwin said, Monday’s commute “would have been one for the record books.”
Another suburban system, WestCat, ATU 1605, did not go out even though its contract also expired July 1.
The other unionized mass transit systems serving San Francisco, (SF MUNI, Ferries, SamTrans, Golden Gate,) were used as scab service.
BART contracted non-union bus companies to deliver commuters.
The union leaderships disorganized, un-organized and derailed much of the spontaneous sentiment for solidarity and joint actions. The ATU/SEIU leaders have never united with passengers for a long-term plan that attacks the racist nature of service cuts and fare increases. A large number of workers and riders are black and Latino. The union leaders (including the entire AFL-CIO) won’t build class consciousness or educate the working class about the fundamental, irreconcilable conflict between the ruling capitalist class and the working class. Instead they promote legislation, lobbying, “vote-and-hope” Democrats and fear of job actions.
Workers’ Solidarity, Class Consciousness Rumbling below the Surface
Many AC Transit workers were “devastated, discouraged and embarrassed” to be used as scabs during the BART strike. “I couldn’t look the ATU 1555 strikers in the eyes,” said one AC driver. “We should have been on strike with them.” At AC and MUNI some workers called in sick, refused to scab and supported the strike. PLP members were the only ones trying to organize ATU workers to unite with other transit workers with a pledge to walk picket lines and not to work overtime. Unfortunately, that sentiment was not organized enough to wrest power from the Internationals.
Many passengers did not take the media bait that BART workers are “overpaid,” “greedy” and “selfish” for making low-paid workers miss work. As PLP members organized solidarity, we found some who were class conscious and felt similar to the BART workers because they work to survive (despite BART workers being higher paid). Then others had a class analysis, understanding something about how capitalism works to hurt everyone. The latter were more likely to argue with, or get pissed off at, friends who complained about being “inconvenienced.” Sometimes we don’t know how far our influence has reached until something comes along to test it.
For some transit workers, the extent of the union leaders’ sabotage may have been an eye-opener. Others may think “that’s the best we can do.” After this experience there certainly is a basis for a rank-and-file transit unity group to grow. The ripples will spread over time if there is an organized, center to keep the ripples going. Struggle for class consciousness and class analysis continues with PLP members and friends in the mix.