Drop All Charges Against Darryl Goodwin!

NYPD Targets Transit Worker

On May 16 New York City subway station agent Darryl Goodwin, a member of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100, was arrested at work and held overnight. His supposed “crime” was not opening a platform gate fast enough for a gang of cops chasing a suspected shoplifter. Goodwin was helping a customer at the noisy and crowded Columbus Circle station when he heard a call of “Gate! Gate!” but could not tell who was shouting. Instead of using their duty MetroCards or keys to open the gate, the thugs in blue stormed to his booth. Furious that Goodwin hadn’t immediately buzzed them in, they screamed at him and banged on his enclosure. Following company procedure, Goodwin opened the gate as soon as he verified who wanted access.

The cops went to the platform, but quickly returned to confront Goodwin. When Goodwin produced his work ID on demand, the cops concocted a story that he had attacked a police lieutenant with his ID badge. Goodwin, who has had a spotless job record for nearly three decades, now faces charges of obstructing government administration, resisting arrest and causing injury to a police officer. The Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) suspended him without pay, not reinstating him until late June. As a July 22 protest letter by the Partisan Defense Committee—a legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League—noted, “Pursuing these bogus charges is clearly a vendetta against a black transit worker who was not sufficiently servile as far as the police were concerned.” Drop all charges against Darryl Goodwin! Restore his lost wages!

This racist frame-up is an attack on the whole union. His defense has struck a chord among many TWU members, who are all too familiar with the NYPD’s arrogance and brutality. Importantly, nearly 50 transit workers, many of them station agents, came out to Goodwin’s court hearing on June 29. Sending a message to the court that they had Goodwin’s back, the workers stood in unison when his name was called. In response, a court officer barked: “Sit down! Sit down!” The transit workers turned to stare at the cop and paused before taking their seats, having made their point.

The power of TWU Local 100 must be mobilized in Goodwin’s defense. The leadership of Local 100 has supported Goodwin and helped with his legal defense. The union tops issued a call for members to turn out to the courthouse, but only the day before the hearing. Flexing the muscle of this 41,000-strong union, whose members transport millions throughout the city every day, runs counter to the pro-capitalist politics of the labor bureaucracy.

The strategy of the union misleaders is to preach reliance on Democratic Party politicians in City Hall and Albany, while fostering suicidal illusions that the cops themselves are “union brothers.” In concert with the MTA, they have also pushed the idea that transit workers are fellow “first responders,” obligated to act as police auxiliaries. This is pure poison and undermines the ability of transit workers to struggle against their racist capitalist exploiters.

A union vice president has reduced the victimization of Goodwin to “an overzealous Police Lieutenant who got up on the wrong side of the bed.” In other words, supposedly the problem is a “bad apple” cop supervisor. Transit and other workers who routinely face cop harassment on and off the job know better. In September 2016, an off-duty cop brutally assaulted Kiyya Rivera, a female subway conductor. The cop had been leaning against the door of her booth and stumbled when Rivera opened it. He struck her in the face and knocked her to the ground, sending her to the hospital. The strikebreaking cops who regularly gun down black and minority people are not workers. Whether “rank and file” patrolmen or supervisors, the cops are the enforcers of racist capitalist rule and have no place in the labor movement. Cops out of the unions!

A concerted fight on Darryl Goodwin’s behalf can help put the TWU in a better position to defeat future assaults from the bosses. It would also send a message to the cops that the union will fight back against their attacks on TWU members. The starting point must be reliance on the social power of the union, not on the bosses’ courts and the Democrats. Goodwin’s next court hearing is scheduled for August 10. His union brothers and sisters and all opponents of racist cop terror should be there in force to pack the courtroom. Defend union brother Darryl Goodwin!