Fightback grows against NYC transit cuts

New York City Transit riders, communities and Transport Workers Local 100 have come together to launch a “Campaign to Take Back Our Transit System” (TBOTS). This alliance was formed in the face of an aggressive attack by the Metropolitan Transit Authority. In June the MTA slashed two subway lines, 37 bus routes and more than 900 jobs.

Photo: Mike Eilenfeldt/PVN

The MTA has closed hundreds of subway booths. It plans to raise the subway fare by 7.5 percent and impose a $1 surcharge on new MetroCards. Station agents, bus drivers, train inspectors and mechanics have been laid off. Some neighborhoods have been cut off from public transportation. The lives of disabled people and seniors have become a nightmare due to these cuts.

A New York state court ruled the MTA had violated the law by not holding public hearings on the closing of station booths and ordered them to be held. The same day as the court order, the MTA arrogantly said they would hold the hearings but go ahead with the closings and layoffs. They continued to demolish the booths and hung signs in stations that booths would be closed.

On July 13 and 14 the MTA held the court-mandated public hearings in four boroughs. For years workers and riders have been attending hearings and testifying on the many hardships they faced due to MTA actions. But these hearings were different. Asserting that the MTA board was full of Wall Street and real estate developer stooges, workers and riders turned the hearings into tumultuous protests.

TWU members, including many laid-off workers, wearing blue union shirts and an equal number of riders wearing white TBOTS shirts testified and took over the hearings with signs and constant chants.

In the Manhattan and Brooklyn hearings, after declaring “The hearing is a sham, fire the MTA!” workers and riders militantly walked out together. In the Bronx a union executive board member asked the laid-off workers to stand and demanded that the MTA board members look them in the eyes — which they refused to do.

In the Bronx, union Vice President Maurice Jenkins thanked the MTA for helping to unite the union’s leaders and members in a determined fightback and for helping them forge ties with the community for the struggle ahead.

Local 100 Executive Board member Paul Piazza put it bluntly, saying there would be a strike if necessary. But this time the union would be fully prepared to win, with massive community and labor support — enough to shut down the whole city for as long as it takes.

The MTA says it has an $800 million deficit. The TBOTS campaign says the MTA has plenty of money. The MTA continues to drain revenues with a multibillion-dollar, 20-year construction of the Second Avenue subway to serve Manhattan’s posh Upper East Side and with the gargantuan Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn to serve the developers of a new profit-making sports complex. And the $2.5 billion extension of the midtown 7 line fosters commercial development on the West Side. None of the profits of these developments will go back to the MTA or the riding public.

On top of these capital projects, jobs and services are cut so the MTA can pay bankers $2.5 billion each year in tax-free interest payments on its debt. These budget choices were lambasted at the hearings.

More money could be available, such as between $8 billion and $16 billion in stock-transfer tax rebates that New York state gives back to Wall Street each year (and has for more than two decades).

The union has accused the MTA of keeping two sets of financial records. They also denounced the fact that the MTA received $180 million in federal stimulus funds, which it has set aside for capital projects, instead of directing it to essential services where it would begin circulating immediately.

The union and the TBOTS campaign are also pressuring the New York state legislature to pass a pending bill that would halt further booth closings. Disabled and senior groups have filed a class-action lawsuit against the MTA because the service cuts violate their right to access the public transit system.

Take Back Our Transit System is building a mass citywide campaign to challenge the authority of the “Authority.” Gavrielle Gemma, an organizer with TBOTS, told Workers World: “Every train, every bus, every station belongs to the people of New York City. It is our property, public property. The MTA is not elected and represents Wall Street, not our streets. We paid for it, we built it, we run it, we ride on it, and we will take it back.”