This is the second day of the NYC MTA transit workers strike, "the largest class confrontation in a generation" to which the establishment (including the Transit Workers Union itself which has denied the workers the support they have paid for with their dues and is threatening them with fines in addition to those being imposed by the state) in NYC has reacted as 'masters to a slave revolt' promising to break both the union and its members¹. In a better time/people this would be a trigger for a general class action in what is supposed to be one of the more enlightened cities in the country. Little chance but hey what about that thing in PA? Not only did the Bush appointed judge do the right thing, but the citizens of that locality had already voted out every single one of the Board of Ed members who imposed the reading of the Intelligent Design statement. A little glimmer of light in a huge darkness. I am beginning to believe that the current social order is inherently right/correct since if the oppressed classes actively choose to be manipulated ignoramuses, to allow the decay and corruption of institutions that took generations to build, or to passively permit same, then how can they, as a class, be worthy of anything else?
After 3 days, the TWU local leadership caved to the enormous pressure applied by the billionaire mayor, the governor looking to establish credentials for a 2008 republican presidential run, and other elements of the class system determined to break the insurgency including the corrupt media which portrayed the MTA workers as "greedy". It was clear that much of the working class in NYC was behind this action, but Rupert Murdochs local tabloid actually referred to the MTA workers as "rats". Although as yet unresolved, the major value of this experience may be to finally disillusion workers of any notion that the class struggle, so vehemently denied to exist in this country where it is so pronounced, can be advanced by a union bureaucracy firmly commited to denying it and advancing their positions as "management partners" of the bosses, or at the very least wholly unsuited to the role of vanguards of any class action.
Apparent Victory! CBS reports that the MTA workers got a contract with a 10% raise over 3 years. The MTA dropped its attempt to force up the retirement age. This action should serve as a model to the entire working class. Without the direct action of the workers, even in opposition to the upper levels of the union bureaucracy, and the threat of further action the result would have been the exact opposite.