Elections for Local 100’s leadership are fast approaching and the members face a grave crisis.
State and city politicians along with management are openly preparing unprecedented attacks on transit workers’ jobs and working conditions, including mass layoffs and demands for more givebacks. Meanwhile in Washington, Trump and the Republicans are whipping up racism and waging a war against civil rights and the labor movement.
As these threats to transit workers grow, our union is burdened by a corrupt leadership that is more interested in keeping hold of their positions of privilege and power than organizing resistance. Now headed by unelected Local 100 President Tony Utano, Local 100’s leaders are continuing their corrupt alliance with Governor Cuomo. Just as they forced the Tier 6 pension rip-off and other givebacks on Local 100 members, they are conspiring with the politicians and management to sell us out again. And they are working to keep the members passive, even refusing to mobilize members for mass protests against Trump and the Republicans.
To keep hold of power, Utano & Co. rule the union by undemocratic means. They’ve removed elected leaders from office on trumped-up charges and appointed cronies to positions of power. Lately we’ve even seen violence and physical intimidation used against militant Local 100 members!
It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way
We shouldn’t take this anymore. With its majority Black, Latino and immigrant membership, Local 100’s members make this city run, and if we’re pushed we can shut it down in defense of our jobs and working conditions. The powers-that-be need to fear that potential if we are to force them to back off their attacks. And we could – if we had a leadership that was democratically accountable to the membership at every step and committed to mobilizing our power; a leadership that stands for an uncompromising defense of the interests of transit workers, wins public support by really opposing fare hikes and service cuts, and supports all struggles for social justice.
This December’s union elections give members the chance to throw out our union’s sellout bureaucrats and elect new leaders that can offer hope for a way forward. But it won’t be easy. We have many challenges to overcome – and fast.
Unions should be organizations for workers’ collective defense of their interests. But our current officials treat the union as a machine through which they can rise to enjoy management-like positions, with management-like paychecks, at the members’ expense! Today, our union’s officials make more than the highest paid workers do for a 40-hour work week. The fact that they are paid salaries that are not tied to members’ wages and conditions means they can accept lousy wage deals and other givebacks without feeling the effects themselves. Furthermore, the top union bureaucrats encourage the lower-level officials to help them screw the members over by promising to reward them with promotions into the bureaucracy’s pecking order of rising salaries and other perks.
With a union officialdom organized like this, it’s no wonder our current leaders so readily embrace the bosses’ divide and conquer attacks. Two infamous examples of this are how they stuck new-hires with the Tier 6 pension rip-off and entrenched management’s discrimination against cleaners by accepting their being singled out to start work at a lower percentage of their top-rate pay than all other transit workers. And of course there are many other instances that could be pointed to.
We can’t afford to keep a leadership that uses the union to get ahead at the members’ expense.
We need a leadership that is committed to being accountable to the members in every way, with salaries that don’t see them profiting out of the members’ dues and that only rise or fall with those of the members. We need a leadership that is commitment to democratic decision-making at every level of the union, always encouraging debate and opposing censorship, violence and intimidation.
And we need a leadership that is committed to uniting the members against the politicians’ and bosses’ attacks. That means recognizing that in the struggle to defend and improve the conditions of all members, a priority must be made to raise the conditions of transit workers who have been stuck with “second class” and “third class” wages and benefits. And it means championing the interests of members who face systematic discrimination, especially women workers.
A Way Forward
The sad state of affairs in Local 100 means that when it comes to union elections it’s difficult for members to tell the difference between phony opportunists and real opponents of the current leadership’s treachery. We’ve already seen many times in the past how some candidates talk like they’re concerned for the members but really just want the same money and power as the current bureaucrats. Other candidates could really offer an alternative of a democratic union with accountable leaders committed to mobilizing our power to defend our interests and support broader struggles of workers for justice. So we need to make the differences between candidates clear.
Moreover, the coming elections hold the danger that multiple candidates challenging Utano & Co. will unnecessarily split the opposition vote and allow the old guard to win despite how widely they’re hated. Instead of giving the members a chance to decide, some would-be candidates against Utano & Co. have simply declared themselves “THE OPPOSITION” and demanded that no one else run in the elections to challenge the incumbents. But there’s still time for them to end this divisive approach.
So what can be done to start to make the differences between fake and real opponents of the sellout leaders clear? How can we avoid the danger of unnecessary vote-splitting allowing Utano & Co. to stay in power?
To try to answer these questions, a number of Local 100 office-holders and former office-holders, Shop Stewards and militants from a variety of different backgrounds, have come together to call on all serious opponents of Utano & Co. to participate in meetings to discuss and decide on whether we can build a united opposition based on clear fight-back principles. We want to focus on the future so for members to participate in these meetings we won’t demand agreement on past issues. We do, however, reserve the right to require that anyone wishing to participate in the meetings agree in advance to basic principles of union democracy and solidarity that we regard as essential for anyone to be considered fit to hold union office.
Because we need a movement of the members from below and not just an election slate, these meetings should be open to all members committed to working to build such an alternative to Utano & Co., and not just potential candidates.
These meetings should discuss and vote on a program of basic principles that all candidates would be sworn to uphold, and then vote on what candidates should run for what positions.
There’s no guarantee that we’ll succeed. But we must try. A Local-wide slate would be a great achievement. Even divisional slates would be a big step forward, allowing for a united election campaign that offers a clear alternative for the members.
All Local 100 members who agree with this call are encouraged to attend meetings starting this weekend, September 8. For more information, contact us at Local100Fightback@gmail.com.
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