Utano’s Do-Nothing Strategy Risks Disaster
It’s Time to Start the Fightback!
When Andy Byford became the MTA’s President he rightly hailed us as “miracle workers” for the way we make the decrepit transit system run. But now it’s time to negotiate the first contract under his watch, the MTA bosses are showing us no respect. They’re demanding the biggest givebacks that transit workers have ever faced.
With Governor Cuomo pushing for massive cost-cutting, the MTA’s contract “proposal” attacks just about every one of our conditions of employment. If we let them get away with it we’ll suffer a huge cut in our take-home pay while working harder than ever. They even want to cut sick and vacation time! (For the details, see our point-by-point breakdown here.)
But we have the power to beat back these attacks and defend our standard of living.
We Can Beat Back These Attacks – Here’s How
Governor Cuomo and the MTA are as popular as turds in a swimming pool. They deserve the public’s hatred – their hypocrisy is outrageous. For example, while demanding pay cuts from us and fare hikes from the riding public, just months ago Cuomo got himself a 40% raise, while the mostly rich white powerbrokers on the MTA board enjoy an average income ten times that of the typical transit rider!
Local 100 could win massive support if it mobilized in the streets in protest against them and clearly raised demands not just in defense of ourselves and other union workers facing attack right now by the Governor, but also in defense of the riding public against the Governor’s and MTA’s fare hikes, services cuts and underfunding of transit. Such action would raise the members’ fighting spirit and swing more public support behind us. That alone could force the Governor and MTA to back down and if not, it could pave the way for more decisive action.
We all know that the Taylor Law bans strikes and any “concerted action” that interferes with normal work. A responsible union leadership would be doing all it could to organize the members so that we could credibly threaten to strike and win our demands including amnesty from Taylor Law penalties. But there’s a lot that we can do on the job within the limits of the Taylor Law.
For example, management could be forced to show us respect if our union backed the members in using their right to enforce safe operating conditions. That’s our legal right! Union press conferences could warn the riding public that regrettable inconveniences will be the result of Cuomo’s underfunding of the system to the point where dangerous conditions are common. For example, we all know that there are many defective trains and buses. By taking them out of service the system could be brought to a crawl and Cuomo and the MTA made to face the public’s wrath.
To achieve any of this, however, will require a fight – in our union. Already, Local 100 members have responded to the MTA’s contract “proposal” by flooding Division meetings to demand action. Those efforts will have to grow to pressure our election union officers to back the fightback we need because so far, these “leaders” are showing that they intend to continue the approach that has gotten us into this mess.
Local 100 Leaders’ Do-Nothing Weakness Invited These Attacks
The MTA bosses are showing us no respect because our union’s leaders, headed by Tony Utano, have shown nothing but weakness. The MTA didn’t announce their “proposal” until months after our contract expired and in that time Utano & Co. hadn’t even bothered to call a rally of the members. Such inaction has never happened in Local 100 memory!
With the support of Local 100 Fightback, Executive Board members representing RTO proposed a rally to the Board months ago. Scandalously, Utano responded by rejecting the idea. He said that MTA management was restructuring and we should let them get their act together first!
Now we can see how Cuomo and the MTA repaid Utano’s “generosity.” They used that time to attack Local 100 members as well as LIRR workers, whose contract has also expired. They started with slanders about workers stealing money through overtime and followed that up with lies that we don’t come to work enough. These attacks were designed to feed a media frenzy and turn the riding public against us. They encouraged the worsening epidemic of assaults on transit workers. And they prepared the way for the MTA hitting us with their outrageous demands for givebacks.
We Must End Our Leaders’ Corrupt Alliance with Cuomo & the MTA Bosses!
Utano & Co.’s inaction is the culmination of the alliance with Governor Cuomo and the MTA bosses that was started by previous Local 100 President John Samuelsen. By doing the governor’s dirty work – such as by helping him stick the entire State labor force with the Tier-6 pension ripoff and by supporting Cuomo’s election campaigns – they reckoned Local 100 would be rewarded with slightly less rotten contract wage deals than other unions. Predictably, as this strategy has weakened and isolated Local 100, its prepared the way for Cuomo and the MTA bosses to turn their worst attacks on us.
Incredibly, Utano is still hoping a partnership with Cuomo and the bosses can lead to a deal he can sell to the members. That’s clear from how Utano’s blustered against the MTA’s demands but continued to “stand by his man” and avoid even once naming Governor Cuomo as the man behind these attacks. And it’s clear from the fact that despite the urgent need to rally Local 100’s members for a fightback, Utano is still delaying action. After the MTA announced their demands for givebacks Utano told the E. Board that he might call a rally of the members .. “in the coming months”!
We can’t afford to let Utano & Co. continue this disastrous strategy any longer.
Local 100 Members are Demanding Action!
Local 100 members responded to the MTA’s announcement of its contract “proposal” with outrage and many took the opportunity to demand answers from their union leaders at their next Division meetings.
The August Train Operators’ meetings, for example, were many times larger than normal, with over a hundred concerned and angry members attending. They made clear that they were in no mood to deal with “any bullshit” from their elected officers. But they quickly learned that they’d have to go over the heads of their “leaders,” raise motions for action themselves, and then force their leaders to call a vote.
The RTO officers at these meetings continued to stick with Utano’s do-nothing approach. They used the stupidest arguments to say that it wasn’t possible to organize a contract rally before October because there are several union parades and cultural events in September.
One train operator at the AM meeting exposed the stupidity of the officials’ arguments by asking that since a rally against the MTA’s attacks is urgently needed, wouldn’t it make sense to postpone these cultural events so that it could happen? The officials’ inability to answer this members’ simple question was devastating. Other members’ responded bluntly, condemning the leadership’s approach as “insane.”
To offer an alternative to Utano & Co.’s recipe for defeat, Local 100 Fightback members at the AM meeting put forward a motion for the union to call a rally at Governor Cuomo’s offices on September 24, the day before the next MTA Board Meeting. Our motion also called for Local 100 to reach out to the LIRR workers’ union to join us in a united rally since their contract is expired, they are also under attack, and a united mobilization would both expand our power as well as undercut Cuomo and the MTA’s ability to divide and conquer us. Our motion was passed unanimously.
At the PM union meeting, Progressive Action’s T/O Executive Board member Evangeline Byars proposed a motion to be raised at the next Executive Board meeting for the union to build a mobilization at the next MTA board meeting on September 25, including mobilizing members to speak at the public comment period at the beginning of the meeting. This motion also called for outreach to the LIRR worker's unions to make it a mass joint union rally. And it called for outreach to other union workers and the riding public as well.
Local 100 Fightback fully supports this motion. Our members have been working closely with Progressive Action’s Executive Board members and other officials in RTO around safety issues and the need for a contract struggle for months now and look forward to continuing to do so.
And the groundswell of support for immediate union action didn’t end there. At the Signals Division meeting a week later, a motion for a rally at the MTA Board Meeting on September 5 was raised with the support of Local 100 Fightback, and it was passed unanimously, with the Division’s elected leaders promising to raise it at the next Executive Board meeting.
We urge members of other Divisions to raise similar motions in their upcoming meetings to maximize the pressure on Utano and Co. And regardless of whether the union throws its resources behind the protest, members should get ready to mobilize anyway and protest on September 25 at 2 Broadway. Either way, a rally will be an important step in showing the MTA, Utano & Co., and our fellow Local 100 members, that we’re getting ready for a fight to defend our jobs and living standards.
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