NEW YORK CITY, May 5 — Workers here are under attack. Masses of city employees are slaving away under expired union contracts. The principle of “No contract, No work” — meaning if workers hadn’t won their demands when their contract expired, they would strike — now seems like ancient history. Gone is the militant, communist leadership that once steered NYC unions towards challenging capitalists’ constant drive to maximize profits off our backs. Instead we have union mis-leaders telling workers for years to hold on for a new, “better” mayor. Recent events have shown that putting faith in union hacks and politicians will get us nowhere!
On April 17, transit workers found they were among the first to be sold out. A deal struck between Transit Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 mis-leaders and NY State Governor Cuomo “The Cutter” raises the cost of workers’ health insurance, lengthens wage-progression to five years (up from three) and only grants pay raises that are really cuts because they’re below inflation. It provides the bosses and their lackeys years of “labor peace” with a five-year contract (also up from three).
This is a racist contract which attacks a mainly black, Latino, Asian and immigrant workforce, and is especially bad for those newly hired who are even more predominately from those groups. Since it will take even longer to get to top pay, the contract will encourage hire-and-fire attacks (especially in already unstable jobs like bus drivers). However, this racist sellout will affect all new transit workers, will further divide the new from the old and thereby weaken all.
While Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) unions bargain with the State, the amount that 38,000 TWU Local 100 members earn sets a pattern in the city for all workers, especially other MTA workers who are in Amalgamated Transit Union locals. This is clear from the April 30 deal announced by Bill “Cutbacks” deBlasio and the United Federation of Teachers. The sexist teachers’ contract, which attacks a mainly female workforce, allows for nearly the exact same pay raises that fail to match inflation and represents a longer-than-usual contract.
To be clear, gross totals of inflation for 2012 and 2013 were 3 percent, while pay raises were only 2 percent. New York workers are well aware of this, especially thanks to the Rent Guidelines Board, which has jacked up rents 5.25-7.25 percent in those years!
The cuts in real pay and benefits in store for the rest of the city’s workers could be even worse. Much of this stems from the fact that while the bosses steal trillions of dollars from public and private sector workers’ labor, they spend these monies on imperialist wars. Capitalist politicians are professional liars when in comes to blaming one another for lack of funding for schools, transit and healthcare that workers need.
As workers we need the PLP to grow, to become strong enough to lead workers, students and soldiers away from not only the bosses’ politicians but also from the treadmill of reforms. While it’s good to fight to make workers lives better now, capitalism operates to take away what meager gains we win through higher taxes, mass racist unemployment, two-tier wage systems and outright wage-cuts. That’s why learning to fight the bosses is even more important, so we can ultimately overthrow the capitalist class and take power for ourselves. A communist system could meet all workers’ needs, destroy racism and sexism, homelessness, imperialist war and wage slavery.