Boston

Reinstate Fired School Bus Union Leaders!

Boston school bus drivers, organized in United Steel Workers (USW) Local 8751, are fighting a vendetta against union leaders for a brief job action last month provoked by labor-hating Veolia Transportation (see “Boston Job Action: No Reprisals Against School Bus Drivers!” WV No. 1033, 1 November). Since it took over management of the buses in June, the company had trampled on the union contract, threatening safety, shortchanging drivers on their paychecks and effectively forcing them to reapply for their jobs. When on October 8 drivers refused to roll out the buses unless management agreed to a meeting with the union, the bosses locked out the workforce for the day, bringing in police to help clear the yards. Veolia sought to make special examples of the “School Bus Union 5.” Grievance committee chairman Stevan Kirschbaum, vice president Steve Gillis, recording secretary Andre Francois, stewards Garry Murchison and Richard Lynch were suspended. Except for Lynch, all were later fired.

Large numbers of the heavily Haitian and Cape Verdean drivers and their supporters mobilized for protests outside the disciplinary hearing for the School Bus Union 5 at the end of October. In response to the subsequent firings of the Local 8751 officials, some of whom have long been supported by the reformist Workers World Party (WWP), a day of solidarity was held on November 9. Hundreds of people, including trade unionists from other cities, rallied at the Freeport bus yard and marched to company headquarters, chanting “Union! Union!” Management, though, has thus far proved intransigent. Not one of the demands presented by the union right after the work stoppage, which the company deemed illegal, has been met. To help beat back this open union-busting, all of labor must stand behind the drivers. Reinstate Kirschbaum, Gillis, Francois and Murchison! An injury to one is an injury to all!

Although the USW regional office renounced the job action at the time, providing ammunition for Veolia, the union’s top leadership has since stepped up to the plate to underwrite the defense effort. The San Francisco Labor Council and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1181 in New York City are among the union bodies that have issued solidarity statements, helping counter the redbaiting and union-bashing emanating from all quarters of the Boston elite. Such statements need to be turned into whatever actions are necessary to defeat the attack on Local 8751 by Veolia, an international outfit holding over 200 transportation contracts with cities, transit authorities and airports across North America. Wherever it sets up, this company’s first order of business is to attempt to bring the unions to heel. Impressed by its anti-union record, other employers have paid top dollar for its services, such as Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), which hired Veolia’s Thomas Hock to squeeze its unions in contract negotiations earlier this year.

The attacks on the poorly paid school bus drivers are the latest in the nationwide anti-labor barrage. In NYC, school bus drivers and matrons in ATU Local 1181 carried out a month-long strike earlier this year after Mayor Michael Bloomberg sought to strip them of job protections, only to see 100 of the strikers fired upon returning to work. On the West Coast, BART union members went on strike twice in recent months in an attempt to fend off major concessions. Everywhere, workers are under pressure to keep surrendering hard-won gains of the past, even as the capitalist exploiters pocket ever greater profits.

A major barrier to reversing this course is labor officialdom’s embrace of capitalist Democratic Party politicians. Unions nationwide contributed millions to help elect “friend of labor” Martin J. Walsh, the next mayor of Boston. But the reaction of this former head of the city’s Building and Construction Trades Council to the October 8 job action was barely distinguishable from that of current Democratic mayor Thomas Menino. Not mincing words, Walsh declared: “This is illegal, the actions taken by the drivers. I don’t condone it in any shape, manner, or form.” According to the Boston Globe (8 October), Walsh “has continuously insisted that he would be able to oversee tough negotiations with unions despite their heavy contributions to his campaign.” This stand underlines the fact that the Democratic Party, no less than the Republicans, is a party of the bosses.

Some Democrats on the City Council, notably Charles Yancey, have attended union rallies and expressed sympathy for the drivers. Yancey, whom WWP extols as a fighter for labor and black rights, offered to mediate on October 8 but was rebuffed by the company. A press release issued by his office the next day explained that “his immediate concern was to persuade bus drivers to return to work.” Seeking to divert workers struggle into bourgeois political channels, he orchestrated a November 21 City Council hearing on Veolia’s anti-union practices. Predictably, the event was snubbed by the mayor, school officials and the bus contractor, although the galleries were packed to overflowing by union members and their supporters.

The basis for the contention that the work stoppage was illegal, which was also the pretext for the firings, is the no-strike clause in the union contract—the only provision that Veolia and the city rulers consider binding. Such pledges by the union bureaucrats, which today are standard practice, bury labor’s most effective weapon in fighting the bosses. With the line drawn in Boston, all of labor should back Local 8751 as part of revitalizing the unions as fighting organizations against the bosses.