Socialist leader Evo Morales has been officially inaugurated as the president of South America's poorest nation. The first indigenous leader of this nation since the colonial era, his party, the Movement Toward Socialism, is advancing the leftward political trend in Latin America. President Morales, center, is seen being blessed by Aymara priests during a ceremony at Tiwanaku, a pre-Inca archaeological site located 37 miles west of the capital La Paz on January 21, 2006.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
Bolivia's 1st Indian President Inaugurated
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:02 p.m. ET
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Evo Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, took office on Sunday with a promise to lift his nation's struggling indigenous majority out of centuries of poverty and discrimination.
Morales, a former leader of Bolivia's coca growers and a fierce critic of U.S. policies, raised a fist in a leftist salute as he swore to uphold the constitution. ''I wish to tell you, my Indian brothers, that the 500-year indigenous and popular campaign of resistance has not been in vain,'' Morales said.
The 46-year-old son of a peasant farmer, Morales vowed that his socialist government would reshape Bolivia. He criticized free-market economic prescriptions supported by the U.S. and international donors, saying they had failed to end chronic poverty. ''The neoliberal economic model has run out,'' said Morales, an Aymara Indian. Thousands of Aymara and Quechua and other Indians attended, many wearing the varied styles of hats imposed on them when Bolivia was a Spanish colony hundreds of years ago.
They stood alongside miners, students and leftist sympathizers waving Cuban and Venezuelan flags on the cobblestone plaza outside the colonial-era Congress building. ''Power is in the hands of the Bolivian people for the first time,'' said Walter Villarro, among 2,000 miners who turned out dressed in their trademark helmets and black leather jackets.
Morales compared decades of discrimination against Indians to apartheid, saying ''Bolivia seems like South Africa'' as he recounted how, decades ago, Indians were barred from entering the plaza. He said he planned to bring Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves under more state control, and call a constitutional assembly to answer Indian demands for a greater share of power at all levels of society, he said.
But he said his government would rule ''with all and for all'' and would not seek revenge for past injustices. He also reiterated promises to respect and protect private property. Part of a broader Latin American tilt to the left, Morales has left many guessing whether he will maintain free-market policies or take a more radical path.
Morales met Saturday with Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, and was to talk Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vociferous critic of the Bush administration. ''I would like to thank the representative of the United States, Mr. Shannon, for his visit,'' Morales said. ''He visited me in my humble home to express his wishes to strengthen diplomatic relations.''
Morales said his leftist Movement Toward Socialism would be independent, avoiding outside influences. He has said his government would welcome warm relations with the U.S. but he vowed Sunday to not ''submit'' to any outside powers. Morales has said he wants to reverse U.S.-backed eradication of Bolivian coca plants, the raw material for cocaine, but crack down on the international cartels that traffic the drug. Poor Bolivians traditionally chew coca to combat hunger and the effects of altitude.
Shannon has said increased cultivation could provide an opening for traffickers to expand.
Morales said Sunday he was inviting Washington to join in ''an alliance, an agreement on an effective fight against drug trafficking.'' But he said would accept no conditions that constitute ''an excuse by the government of the United States to dominate or subjugate our people.'' The inauguration was attended by 11 national leaders, including Chavez and left-leaning presidents Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Ricardo Lagos of Chile.
''Chavez! Chavez!'' the crowd shouted as the Venezuelan, whom Morales has said he admires, strode past blowing kisses. ''Starting with the government of the United States and concluding with the government of Fidel Castro, we have international support,'' Morales said. Castro sent Cuba's vice president to the ceremony. Mobbed by supporters as entered the building, Morales wore an open-necked, button-down shirt and a dark jacket in keeping with his informal style.
''We've been discriminated against for 500 years, but now we have Evo and a government that will represent us,'' said Zenoino Perez, an Aymara Indian who wore a leather cap adorned with feathers, played a reed flute and was accompanied to the inauguration by about a dozen people from his village.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:02 p.m. ET
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) -- Evo Morales, Bolivia's first Indian president, took office on Sunday with a promise to lift his nation's struggling indigenous majority out of centuries of poverty and discrimination.
Morales, a former leader of Bolivia's coca growers and a fierce critic of U.S. policies, raised a fist in a leftist salute as he swore to uphold the constitution. ''I wish to tell you, my Indian brothers, that the 500-year indigenous and popular campaign of resistance has not been in vain,'' Morales said.
The 46-year-old son of a peasant farmer, Morales vowed that his socialist government would reshape Bolivia. He criticized free-market economic prescriptions supported by the U.S. and international donors, saying they had failed to end chronic poverty. ''The neoliberal economic model has run out,'' said Morales, an Aymara Indian. Thousands of Aymara and Quechua and other Indians attended, many wearing the varied styles of hats imposed on them when Bolivia was a Spanish colony hundreds of years ago.
They stood alongside miners, students and leftist sympathizers waving Cuban and Venezuelan flags on the cobblestone plaza outside the colonial-era Congress building. ''Power is in the hands of the Bolivian people for the first time,'' said Walter Villarro, among 2,000 miners who turned out dressed in their trademark helmets and black leather jackets.
Morales compared decades of discrimination against Indians to apartheid, saying ''Bolivia seems like South Africa'' as he recounted how, decades ago, Indians were barred from entering the plaza. He said he planned to bring Bolivia's vast natural gas reserves under more state control, and call a constitutional assembly to answer Indian demands for a greater share of power at all levels of society, he said.
But he said his government would rule ''with all and for all'' and would not seek revenge for past injustices. He also reiterated promises to respect and protect private property. Part of a broader Latin American tilt to the left, Morales has left many guessing whether he will maintain free-market policies or take a more radical path.
Morales met Saturday with Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, and was to talk Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a vociferous critic of the Bush administration. ''I would like to thank the representative of the United States, Mr. Shannon, for his visit,'' Morales said. ''He visited me in my humble home to express his wishes to strengthen diplomatic relations.''
Morales said his leftist Movement Toward Socialism would be independent, avoiding outside influences. He has said his government would welcome warm relations with the U.S. but he vowed Sunday to not ''submit'' to any outside powers. Morales has said he wants to reverse U.S.-backed eradication of Bolivian coca plants, the raw material for cocaine, but crack down on the international cartels that traffic the drug. Poor Bolivians traditionally chew coca to combat hunger and the effects of altitude.
Shannon has said increased cultivation could provide an opening for traffickers to expand.
Morales said Sunday he was inviting Washington to join in ''an alliance, an agreement on an effective fight against drug trafficking.'' But he said would accept no conditions that constitute ''an excuse by the government of the United States to dominate or subjugate our people.'' The inauguration was attended by 11 national leaders, including Chavez and left-leaning presidents Nestor Kirchner of Argentina, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Ricardo Lagos of Chile.
''Chavez! Chavez!'' the crowd shouted as the Venezuelan, whom Morales has said he admires, strode past blowing kisses. ''Starting with the government of the United States and concluding with the government of Fidel Castro, we have international support,'' Morales said. Castro sent Cuba's vice president to the ceremony. Mobbed by supporters as entered the building, Morales wore an open-necked, button-down shirt and a dark jacket in keeping with his informal style.
''We've been discriminated against for 500 years, but now we have Evo and a government that will represent us,'' said Zenoino Perez, an Aymara Indian who wore a leather cap adorned with feathers, played a reed flute and was accompanied to the inauguration by about a dozen people from his village.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Focused on Peace & Social Justice
Detroit's MLK Day Commemoration attracted a large audience to the Central United Methodist Church on Jan. 16. Later a larger crowd marched through downtown Detroit. This was the third annual demonstration in honor of the late civil rights leader who was assassinated on April 4, 1968. This year's event was the most organized and politically relevant manifestation of the last three years when the Detroit MLK Day March was created.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
MLK Day March and Rally Continues Legacy of Civil Rights Leader
Social justice and peace is the focus of Detroit action
By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor
Pan-African News Wire
DETROIT, Jan. 16, 2006 (PANW)--This year's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. day march and rally gathered at Central United Methodist Church under the banner of "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 represented the third consecutive year that a rally and march was organized in downtown Detroit. The event was started in 2004 by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) in order to continue the anti-war and economic justice legacy of the late civil rights leader who was killed on April 4, 1968 in Memphis where he was assisting the sanitation workers in a strike aimed at recognition of their collective bargaining rights.
Since 2004, the event has grown into a Detroit MLK Committee that encompasses over 40 co-sponsors, endorsers and supporters from throughout the southeast Michigan region. At this year's opening rally, Rev. Ed Rowe, Pastor of Central United Methodist Church, delivered the invocation noting the many organizations in the event program that people could join and do volunteer work.
"This march has to be a march of our lives not a march of our mouths." "If you are going to follow Dr. Martin Luther King you are going to break the silence on racism and the apathy of a nation, my God where is the rage," Rev. Rowe said. "If you are going to follow Dr. Martin Luther King you must break the silence of apathy. Remember the Riverside Church speech of Dr. King in New York: 'There comes a time where silence is betrayal' and this is it, not just Vietnam then but Iraq now and the middle-east, it is time to break the silence," Rowe continued.
Rowe then pointed out that when King "took up the issue of poverty, when he said that economic exploitation was a part of the civil rights movement that got him killed. So if you are going to merge, if you are going to be a civil rights activist, if you are going to speak today for Martin Luther King then you are merging the histories of militarism and the issues of poverty and the issues of racism in making them one," Rowe said.
2006 marked the 77th birthday of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. It was also the twentieth anniversary of the recognition of King's birthday as a federal holiday.
For the first time a 'Detroit MLK Spirit of Detroit Award' was presented by planning committee member Fran Rosinski to the Detroit City Council's President-Emeritus, Ms. Maryann Mahaffey. Ms. Mahaffey recently retired from over three decades of service on the legislative body for the city. The award was created by local artist Aaron Ochylski.
According to Rosinski: "We reached out to our artists in the community to create an original piece of art work which reflects the artist's vision of the Spirit of Detroit. This year's local artist, Aaron Ochylski, created this piece-- described by the artist as a compilation of diverse pieces of glass that form a unified whole. When you look inside there is a mosaic of mirrors--the viewer sees himself and becomes part of the experience of unity and diversity."
Voices from the community
A host of speakers representing labor, community and peace organizations delivered presentations on their respective struggles.
Jozette Dowdell of the Childcare Providers Union, that is seeking recognition through AFSCME and the UAW, spoke about how they are working on behalf of 34,000 workers in Wayne County.
"Dr. King fought for laws upholding equal rights and against segregation. As it stands today in 2006 we are still separated by that Eight Mile line. Childcare providers in Wayne County make $1.88 per hour. Childcare providers are not just childcare providers, we are parents, we are teachers, we're doctors, we're psychologist," Dowdell stated.
"I am asking you to understand that we are here joining with the UAW and AFSCME to form a union so we can have better wages, health insurance, workman's compensation and all of those same things that Dr. King and Rosa Parks stood for to begin with."
"To me his final speech that he gave when speaking with the garbage workers in Memphis when he said stay together, stick together until every demand is met. We ain't going to let nobody turn us around. That is how the childcare providers feel," Dowdell concluded. Atty. Jerry Goldberg, who has worked with the Delphi employees calling themselves 'Soldiers of Solidarity,' spoke to the audience. This rank-and-file committee protested recently outside the International Auto Show held at Cobo Conference Center in downtown Detroit.
Goldberg said that the committee came together to "fight against this latest attack on working people. As we all know Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated while he was supporting sanitation workers in Memphis and he always spoke of the connection between the struggle of all working people and all oppressed people. His last act was to organize a poor peoples' march on Washington, to bring together the struggle for social and economic justice."
Goldberg pointed out how the Delphi auto parts company is using the bankruptcy courts to impose a 63% wage cut. "To take away workers' pensions that they have worked for twenty, twenty-five years of their lives, to steal them by getting a judge to sign away these pensions."
"To take away health benefits and most important to take away jobs, tens of thousands of jobs that are so needed in this economy. The use bankruptcy has become a weapon of the rich and powerful. No different than the use of the military, the use of scabs, the use of the National Guard. It is a new weapon of choice, a little more sophisticated, but it is nothing more than a weapon of repression to take away hard fought rights of workers," Goldberg emphasized.
Other speakers at the rally included Arnie Steiber of the Veterans for Peace organization who discussed his personal journey from being drafted into the Vietnam war to a consciousness of being anti-war and pro-peace. This organization has been a leading voice in the current American military occupation of Iraq.
Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality discussed the plight of the homeless in the city. He said that the homeless were only displaced workers. He also called upon the rally participants to not forget Eric Williams, a homeless man who was gunned down by the State Police last year.
His assailant, Jay Morningstar, was recently acquitted of all charges in connection with the killing despite the fact that the shooting was witnessed by many people including two Detroit police officers.
City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson was present and spoke briefly on the legacy of Dr. King. Other dignitaries were present including State Senator Martha Scott and Ms. Brenda Jones, who was recently elected to the Detroit City Council. Darnell White of the NAACP Youth also spoke on the role of young people in the civil rights movement today.
Music was provided by the Courtis School Choir under the direction of Sandra Hines and James Hewlitt. In introducing the Choir Sandra Hines stated that "the dream is still alive and here it is, this is our future." Hines said that "if you really want to honor Dr. King this is what you can do: work with the children. Don't talk about it, work with them for real. Because the children are our future."
Gov. Jenifer Granholm arrived at the rally and addressed the crowd reflecting on her understanding of the legacy of Martin Luther King. "We have a responsibility to celebrate the strength of unity and strong love together," Granholm said. "It is important that we exhibit strong daily acts of love."
Granholm also suggested that people act as mentors for children. She mentioned that she is doing this for two young girls and that if she could do it as Governor, then there was no excuse for others. The Governor also expressed opposition to the anti- affirmative action proposal that may appear on the November ballot in the state of Michigan. "If we send a message to the world that we are not welcoming to diversity, that is a terrible, terrible message," she said.
Granholm emphasized that affirmative action programs should be presented as a moral issue, an historical issue and a question of competition.
Later a video presentation produced by MLK Planning Committee member John Donabedian was screened. The piece consisted of newsreel footage of Dr. King and the civil rights movement utilizing the soundtrack from the latest Stevie Wonder CD entitled "A Time to Love." March thru downtown After 1:30 p.m. the march began on Woodward avenue. Dozens of signs reading "Money for Our City, Not for War" and "Bring the Troops Home Now" were carried by the demonstrators.
According to the "South End" newspaper from Wayne State University, over 1,000 people marched in the demonstration. A Drumline was provided by the Ann Arbor Trail Middle School Marching Band. Marchers chanted "No Justice, No Peace: US Out of the Middle-East," and other slogans. After arriving back at Central United Methodist Church, the audience was entertained by the Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit. Later students read essays in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Art works from the youth were also presented.
Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor's Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO) spoke on the historic struggle in this southwest Michigan city. Pinkney was indicted last year on four felony charges after leading a successful recall campaign against a city commissioner in Benton Harbor.
Benton Harbor was the scene of three days of rebellion during the summer of 2003 in the aftermath of the death of a young African-American man who was being illegally chased by the County police. Pinkney is seeking support for his defense on what has been described as an attempted frame-up for vote fraud and vote tampering.
The Detroit MLK Day march and rally was co-sponsored, endorsed and supported by numerous organizations including: the International Workers of the World, the Michigan Citizen Newspaper, Sacred Heart Church, St. John's Episcopal Church, UAW Local 22, UAW Region 1A, the Central United Methodist Church, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, the Palestine Office of Michigan, the Metropolitan Academy of Detroit, the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, the Veterans for Peace, the International Action Center, the Interfaith Committee on Workers Issues, the Detroit Area Peace and Justice Network, the Committee for the Political Resurrection of Detroit (CPR), the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Finding Alternatives to Military Enlistment, the Detroit Green Party, Dr. Gloria House of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the Detroit Urban League, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Advocates for Informed Nonviolent Social Change and other organizations.
For more information on the Detroit MLK Committee just log on to the following URL: http://www.mecawi.org or e-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net.
Social justice and peace is the focus of Detroit action
By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor
Pan-African News Wire
DETROIT, Jan. 16, 2006 (PANW)--This year's annual Martin Luther King, Jr. day march and rally gathered at Central United Methodist Church under the banner of "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 represented the third consecutive year that a rally and march was organized in downtown Detroit. The event was started in 2004 by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI) in order to continue the anti-war and economic justice legacy of the late civil rights leader who was killed on April 4, 1968 in Memphis where he was assisting the sanitation workers in a strike aimed at recognition of their collective bargaining rights.
Since 2004, the event has grown into a Detroit MLK Committee that encompasses over 40 co-sponsors, endorsers and supporters from throughout the southeast Michigan region. At this year's opening rally, Rev. Ed Rowe, Pastor of Central United Methodist Church, delivered the invocation noting the many organizations in the event program that people could join and do volunteer work.
"This march has to be a march of our lives not a march of our mouths." "If you are going to follow Dr. Martin Luther King you are going to break the silence on racism and the apathy of a nation, my God where is the rage," Rev. Rowe said. "If you are going to follow Dr. Martin Luther King you must break the silence of apathy. Remember the Riverside Church speech of Dr. King in New York: 'There comes a time where silence is betrayal' and this is it, not just Vietnam then but Iraq now and the middle-east, it is time to break the silence," Rowe continued.
Rowe then pointed out that when King "took up the issue of poverty, when he said that economic exploitation was a part of the civil rights movement that got him killed. So if you are going to merge, if you are going to be a civil rights activist, if you are going to speak today for Martin Luther King then you are merging the histories of militarism and the issues of poverty and the issues of racism in making them one," Rowe said.
2006 marked the 77th birthday of the late Martin Luther King, Jr. It was also the twentieth anniversary of the recognition of King's birthday as a federal holiday.
For the first time a 'Detroit MLK Spirit of Detroit Award' was presented by planning committee member Fran Rosinski to the Detroit City Council's President-Emeritus, Ms. Maryann Mahaffey. Ms. Mahaffey recently retired from over three decades of service on the legislative body for the city. The award was created by local artist Aaron Ochylski.
According to Rosinski: "We reached out to our artists in the community to create an original piece of art work which reflects the artist's vision of the Spirit of Detroit. This year's local artist, Aaron Ochylski, created this piece-- described by the artist as a compilation of diverse pieces of glass that form a unified whole. When you look inside there is a mosaic of mirrors--the viewer sees himself and becomes part of the experience of unity and diversity."
Voices from the community
A host of speakers representing labor, community and peace organizations delivered presentations on their respective struggles.
Jozette Dowdell of the Childcare Providers Union, that is seeking recognition through AFSCME and the UAW, spoke about how they are working on behalf of 34,000 workers in Wayne County.
"Dr. King fought for laws upholding equal rights and against segregation. As it stands today in 2006 we are still separated by that Eight Mile line. Childcare providers in Wayne County make $1.88 per hour. Childcare providers are not just childcare providers, we are parents, we are teachers, we're doctors, we're psychologist," Dowdell stated.
"I am asking you to understand that we are here joining with the UAW and AFSCME to form a union so we can have better wages, health insurance, workman's compensation and all of those same things that Dr. King and Rosa Parks stood for to begin with."
"To me his final speech that he gave when speaking with the garbage workers in Memphis when he said stay together, stick together until every demand is met. We ain't going to let nobody turn us around. That is how the childcare providers feel," Dowdell concluded. Atty. Jerry Goldberg, who has worked with the Delphi employees calling themselves 'Soldiers of Solidarity,' spoke to the audience. This rank-and-file committee protested recently outside the International Auto Show held at Cobo Conference Center in downtown Detroit.
Goldberg said that the committee came together to "fight against this latest attack on working people. As we all know Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated while he was supporting sanitation workers in Memphis and he always spoke of the connection between the struggle of all working people and all oppressed people. His last act was to organize a poor peoples' march on Washington, to bring together the struggle for social and economic justice."
Goldberg pointed out how the Delphi auto parts company is using the bankruptcy courts to impose a 63% wage cut. "To take away workers' pensions that they have worked for twenty, twenty-five years of their lives, to steal them by getting a judge to sign away these pensions."
"To take away health benefits and most important to take away jobs, tens of thousands of jobs that are so needed in this economy. The use bankruptcy has become a weapon of the rich and powerful. No different than the use of the military, the use of scabs, the use of the National Guard. It is a new weapon of choice, a little more sophisticated, but it is nothing more than a weapon of repression to take away hard fought rights of workers," Goldberg emphasized.
Other speakers at the rally included Arnie Steiber of the Veterans for Peace organization who discussed his personal journey from being drafted into the Vietnam war to a consciousness of being anti-war and pro-peace. This organization has been a leading voice in the current American military occupation of Iraq.
Ron Scott of the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality discussed the plight of the homeless in the city. He said that the homeless were only displaced workers. He also called upon the rally participants to not forget Eric Williams, a homeless man who was gunned down by the State Police last year.
His assailant, Jay Morningstar, was recently acquitted of all charges in connection with the killing despite the fact that the shooting was witnessed by many people including two Detroit police officers.
City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson was present and spoke briefly on the legacy of Dr. King. Other dignitaries were present including State Senator Martha Scott and Ms. Brenda Jones, who was recently elected to the Detroit City Council. Darnell White of the NAACP Youth also spoke on the role of young people in the civil rights movement today.
Music was provided by the Courtis School Choir under the direction of Sandra Hines and James Hewlitt. In introducing the Choir Sandra Hines stated that "the dream is still alive and here it is, this is our future." Hines said that "if you really want to honor Dr. King this is what you can do: work with the children. Don't talk about it, work with them for real. Because the children are our future."
Gov. Jenifer Granholm arrived at the rally and addressed the crowd reflecting on her understanding of the legacy of Martin Luther King. "We have a responsibility to celebrate the strength of unity and strong love together," Granholm said. "It is important that we exhibit strong daily acts of love."
Granholm also suggested that people act as mentors for children. She mentioned that she is doing this for two young girls and that if she could do it as Governor, then there was no excuse for others. The Governor also expressed opposition to the anti- affirmative action proposal that may appear on the November ballot in the state of Michigan. "If we send a message to the world that we are not welcoming to diversity, that is a terrible, terrible message," she said.
Granholm emphasized that affirmative action programs should be presented as a moral issue, an historical issue and a question of competition.
Later a video presentation produced by MLK Planning Committee member John Donabedian was screened. The piece consisted of newsreel footage of Dr. King and the civil rights movement utilizing the soundtrack from the latest Stevie Wonder CD entitled "A Time to Love." March thru downtown After 1:30 p.m. the march began on Woodward avenue. Dozens of signs reading "Money for Our City, Not for War" and "Bring the Troops Home Now" were carried by the demonstrators.
According to the "South End" newspaper from Wayne State University, over 1,000 people marched in the demonstration. A Drumline was provided by the Ann Arbor Trail Middle School Marching Band. Marchers chanted "No Justice, No Peace: US Out of the Middle-East," and other slogans. After arriving back at Central United Methodist Church, the audience was entertained by the Mosaic Youth Theater of Detroit. Later students read essays in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Art works from the youth were also presented.
Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor's Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizers (BANCO) spoke on the historic struggle in this southwest Michigan city. Pinkney was indicted last year on four felony charges after leading a successful recall campaign against a city commissioner in Benton Harbor.
Benton Harbor was the scene of three days of rebellion during the summer of 2003 in the aftermath of the death of a young African-American man who was being illegally chased by the County police. Pinkney is seeking support for his defense on what has been described as an attempted frame-up for vote fraud and vote tampering.
The Detroit MLK Day march and rally was co-sponsored, endorsed and supported by numerous organizations including: the International Workers of the World, the Michigan Citizen Newspaper, Sacred Heart Church, St. John's Episcopal Church, UAW Local 22, UAW Region 1A, the Central United Methodist Church, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI), the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, the Palestine Office of Michigan, the Metropolitan Academy of Detroit, the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, the Veterans for Peace, the International Action Center, the Interfaith Committee on Workers Issues, the Detroit Area Peace and Justice Network, the Committee for the Political Resurrection of Detroit (CPR), the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, Finding Alternatives to Military Enlistment, the Detroit Green Party, Dr. Gloria House of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the Detroit Urban League, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Advocates for Informed Nonviolent Social Change and other organizations.
For more information on the Detroit MLK Committee just log on to the following URL: http://www.mecawi.org or e-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net.
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Detroit MLK Day March & Rally Convenes on Mon. January 16
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is photographed here participating in the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights in March of 1965. This campaign led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, it was King's position in opposition to the American war against Vietnam, advanced in April of 1967, that intensified the US Government's determination to bring about his liquidation one year later in 1968. Photographed right behind King is James Forman, who was then executive secretary of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
For Immediate Release
Media Advisory
Event: Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March, Jan. 16
Central United Methodist Church, Noon Rally
Woodward Ave. at Adams, Downtown
March Thru Downtown Beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Contact: The Detroit MLK Committee
5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202
Tel. (313) 680-5508
E-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net
URL: http://www.mecawi.org
Annual MLK Day Freedom March & Rally to be Held Monday January 16 Beginning at Noon at the Central United Methodist Church
This year's annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally will be an historic event. The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 will be a monumental year as it relates to the struggles for peace and social justice. With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the growing socio-economic crisis in the country, people of conscious need outlets to express their determination to see fundamental changes in our lifetimes.
The march and rally on January 16 will provide such an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change. The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies.
On Monday, January 16 at Noon, the MLK Day annual march and rally will convene at the Central United Methodist Church. This year's event is co-sponsored, endorsed and supported by a number of organizations such as: the Central United Methodist Church, the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Healing Support Network, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the Michigan Citizen newspaper, the UAW Local 22, the UAW Region 1A, the Veterans for Peace, the International Workers of the World, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Detroit Urban League, the Detroit City Council, the Office of the Ombudsman in Detroit, the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, the Palestine Office of Michigan, Amnesty International, Group 78-Detroit and many others. Please join us in building this important event.
This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King in downtown Detroit. For more information just contact us by telephone, e-mail. Flyers and sponsorship forms for the MLK Day events can be downloaded from the MECAWI website at http://www.mecawi.org
In Solidarity,
Abayomi Azikiwe, Detroit MLK Committee Call: 313-671-3715
Media Advisory
Event: Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March, Jan. 16
Central United Methodist Church, Noon Rally
Woodward Ave. at Adams, Downtown
March Thru Downtown Beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Contact: The Detroit MLK Committee
5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202
Tel. (313) 680-5508
E-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net
URL: http://www.mecawi.org
Annual MLK Day Freedom March & Rally to be Held Monday January 16 Beginning at Noon at the Central United Methodist Church
This year's annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally will be an historic event. The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 will be a monumental year as it relates to the struggles for peace and social justice. With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the growing socio-economic crisis in the country, people of conscious need outlets to express their determination to see fundamental changes in our lifetimes.
The march and rally on January 16 will provide such an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change. The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies.
On Monday, January 16 at Noon, the MLK Day annual march and rally will convene at the Central United Methodist Church. This year's event is co-sponsored, endorsed and supported by a number of organizations such as: the Central United Methodist Church, the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality, the First Unitarian Universalist Church, Healing Support Network, the Michigan Coalition for Human Rights, the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, the Michigan Citizen newspaper, the UAW Local 22, the UAW Region 1A, the Veterans for Peace, the International Workers of the World, the Coalition of Labor Union Women, the Detroit Urban League, the Detroit City Council, the Office of the Ombudsman in Detroit, the US-Cuba Labor Exchange, the Palestine Office of Michigan, Amnesty International, Group 78-Detroit and many others. Please join us in building this important event.
This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King in downtown Detroit. For more information just contact us by telephone, e-mail. Flyers and sponsorship forms for the MLK Day events can be downloaded from the MECAWI website at http://www.mecawi.org
In Solidarity,
Abayomi Azikiwe, Detroit MLK Committee Call: 313-671-3715
Friday, January 06, 2006
Dr. King Was a Target of the Counter-Intelligence Program
During the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement as a whole were the focus of local, state and national governmental programs aimed at destroying the mass struggle of African-Americans against legalized segregation and economic exploitation. The local authorities in the South working in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under former director J. Edgar Hoover, used various tactics designed to minimize Dr. King's influence and to bring about his political and physical destruction. The article published below documents testimony from the Church Committee Senate hearings during the 1970s where some aspects of the dirty tricks campaigns against Dr. King and the movement were revealed.
Enemies Of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Legacy Persist In Govt.
PANW Editor's Note: The following editorial was written on the eve of the assumption of power by George W. Bush in January of 2001. It is being reprinted in honor of the 77th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Jan. 15.
Join the Detroit Martin Luther King Day annual demonstration on Jan. 16, 2006 at the Central United Methodist Church beginning at Noon. For more information log on to: http://www.mecawi.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENEMIES OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.'S LEGACY PERSIST IN GOVT.
Bush administration and Congress continues to conceal the destruction of the civil rights leader by the American ruling elite
By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Originally Published on January 15, 2001
Editorial Review, 15 Jan. (PANW)--Today represents the 72nd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the leader of the modern-day civil rights and human rights struggle in the United States. King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee to assist a massive strike by the city's sanitation workers, has been recognized with a federal holiday since 1986.
When people listen to the tributes paid to Dr. King today, they should not be confused by the many kind words and praise from the corporate media and the officials of the United States govt. In fact it was the US govt. that created the conditions for the murder of Dr. King and the conspiracy toconceal the true reasons behind his assassination and as a consequence distorted the true meaning of the leader's ideas and work. King, was a controversial figure during the 1950s and 1960s. He was arrested many times by the police and was kept under constant watch by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
It was the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover that grafted many plots designed to not only discredit King but to bringabout his political destruction and physical death.In 1975 the United States Senate, through its Select Committee to study Governmental Operations as it relates to Intelligence Activities, which later became known as the Church Committee, investigated the excesses of the FBI against the civil rights, black power and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
This series of investigations grew out of the exposures emanating from the watergate scandal and the liberation of FBI documents from Reading, PA during the early 1970s. In the conclusion of the Church Committe report it stated the following:"The Committee finds that covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society....The sustained use of such tactics by theFBI in an attempt to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., violated the law and fundamental human decency."
On November 18, 1975, Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., chief counsel, and Curtis R. Smothers, minority counsel of the Church Committee, spoke to the investigative panel on their finding related to what became commonly known as the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that was directed againstthe progressive movements of the 1950s thru the early 1970s. In questioning them, the then Senator Walter Mondale, who later became Vice-President under Jimmy Carter during the late 1970s, stated that "the tactics they [FBI] used against him [King] apparently had no end."
In regard to some of the tactics used against the civil rights leader included "wiretapping. They included microphonic surveillance of hotel rooms. They included informants. They included sponsoring of letters signed by phony names to relatives and friends and organizers. They involved even plans to replace him with someone else whom the FBI was to select as a nationalcivil rights leader."Some of the testimony during these hearings in 1975 included the following exchange:"
Senator Mondale: It included an indirect attempt to persuade the Pope not to see him [King].
Mr. Schwarz: And many other people. Senator Mondale: It directed him [an FBI employee] to persuade one of our major universities not to grant him [King] a doctorate degree.
Mr. Schwarz: That is correct. I think there were two universities. Senator Mondale: It included an attempt to send him a letter prior to the time he received the Nobel Peace Prize, which Dr. Martin Luther King and close associates interpreted to mean a suggestion that King should attempt suicide.
Mr. Schwarz: That's right. Included in that were materials which the Bureau had gathered illegally or improperly through tapes and bugs and so forth."These chilling comments that were made during the 1970s clearly reveal the extent of the conspiracy against Dr. King and the civil rights movement in general in the United States. With the ending of the Clinton administration, it is appropriate to take stock of developments affecting African-Americans over the last eight years.
The sharp rise in the prison population; the epidemic of police murder and brutality; the escalation of hate crimes; and the continuing incarceration of political prisoners who came out of the civil rights and progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiatta Acoli, Leonard Peltier, Eddie Marshall Conway, and many others; illustrates clearly that the vision of a genuine democratic society is far from being realized. Fortunately, on the eve of the administration of George W. Bush, a new coalition of progressive forces are coming together to protest the massive assaults on democracy and human rights that are so pervasive in the present period.
Organizations from the civil rights, youth, women's, anti-imperialist and the new abolitionists movemens are gathering in Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard in opposition to the right-wing political coup that resulted from the mass disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of African-Americans and other voters in Florida and throughoutthe country last Nov. 7. Demonstators will voice their discontent over the growing prison population, now numbering over 2 million people and the existence of over 3,500 people on death row. They will seek to expose the draconian and right-wing character of the Bush cabinet appointments including people such as John Ashcroft, an avowed racist and opponent of the rights of women.
These actions will culminate on Jan. 20 with mass demonstrations in the nation's capital. The speeches, slogans, banners and other forms of expression that will be put forward this week are far more representative of the true legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the post world war II period than the dry and dishonest platitudes being put forward by the corporate media and professional politicians.
Dubya's trip to Houston on Monday that will ostensibly represent his tribute to Dr. King is an act of hypocrisy and villification. Dr. King played a leading role in the struggle to win the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that guaranteed universal suffrage in the United States.
The stealing of the elections in Florida and the subsequent actions by the US Supreme Court was a gross attack on the legacy of Dr. King and everything he stood for during his lifetime. It will be up to the progressive human forces of the 21st Century to carry on the true legacy of Dr. King and all other fighters for human rights and genuine democracy. Those who are complicit in the destruction of Dr. King's legacy and dream must and will be exposed for their treachery by the new face of human rights and democracy that is emerging from the bottom of society to fight against those social elements who are attempting to reimpose slavery and fascism in the modern era.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pan-African News Wire articles may be broadly forwarded for non-profit educational and research purposes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PANW Editor's Note: The following editorial was written on the eve of the assumption of power by George W. Bush in January of 2001. It is being reprinted in honor of the 77th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Jan. 15.
Join the Detroit Martin Luther King Day annual demonstration on Jan. 16, 2006 at the Central United Methodist Church beginning at Noon. For more information log on to: http://www.mecawi.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ENEMIES OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.'S LEGACY PERSIST IN GOVT.
Bush administration and Congress continues to conceal the destruction of the civil rights leader by the American ruling elite
By Abayomi Azikiwe, Editor, Pan-African News Wire
Originally Published on January 15, 2001
Editorial Review, 15 Jan. (PANW)--Today represents the 72nd anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the leader of the modern-day civil rights and human rights struggle in the United States. King, who was assassinated on April 4, 1968, while in Memphis, Tennessee to assist a massive strike by the city's sanitation workers, has been recognized with a federal holiday since 1986.
When people listen to the tributes paid to Dr. King today, they should not be confused by the many kind words and praise from the corporate media and the officials of the United States govt. In fact it was the US govt. that created the conditions for the murder of Dr. King and the conspiracy toconceal the true reasons behind his assassination and as a consequence distorted the true meaning of the leader's ideas and work. King, was a controversial figure during the 1950s and 1960s. He was arrested many times by the police and was kept under constant watch by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
It was the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover that grafted many plots designed to not only discredit King but to bringabout his political destruction and physical death.In 1975 the United States Senate, through its Select Committee to study Governmental Operations as it relates to Intelligence Activities, which later became known as the Church Committee, investigated the excesses of the FBI against the civil rights, black power and anti-war movements of the 1960s and 1970s.
This series of investigations grew out of the exposures emanating from the watergate scandal and the liberation of FBI documents from Reading, PA during the early 1970s. In the conclusion of the Church Committe report it stated the following:"The Committee finds that covert action programs have been used to disrupt the lawful political activities of individual Americans and groups and to discredit them, using dangerous and degrading tactics which are abhorrent in a free and decent society....The sustained use of such tactics by theFBI in an attempt to destroy Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., violated the law and fundamental human decency."
On November 18, 1975, Frederick A. O. Schwarz, Jr., chief counsel, and Curtis R. Smothers, minority counsel of the Church Committee, spoke to the investigative panel on their finding related to what became commonly known as the Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) that was directed againstthe progressive movements of the 1950s thru the early 1970s. In questioning them, the then Senator Walter Mondale, who later became Vice-President under Jimmy Carter during the late 1970s, stated that "the tactics they [FBI] used against him [King] apparently had no end."
In regard to some of the tactics used against the civil rights leader included "wiretapping. They included microphonic surveillance of hotel rooms. They included informants. They included sponsoring of letters signed by phony names to relatives and friends and organizers. They involved even plans to replace him with someone else whom the FBI was to select as a nationalcivil rights leader."Some of the testimony during these hearings in 1975 included the following exchange:"
Senator Mondale: It included an indirect attempt to persuade the Pope not to see him [King].
Mr. Schwarz: And many other people. Senator Mondale: It directed him [an FBI employee] to persuade one of our major universities not to grant him [King] a doctorate degree.
Mr. Schwarz: That is correct. I think there were two universities. Senator Mondale: It included an attempt to send him a letter prior to the time he received the Nobel Peace Prize, which Dr. Martin Luther King and close associates interpreted to mean a suggestion that King should attempt suicide.
Mr. Schwarz: That's right. Included in that were materials which the Bureau had gathered illegally or improperly through tapes and bugs and so forth."These chilling comments that were made during the 1970s clearly reveal the extent of the conspiracy against Dr. King and the civil rights movement in general in the United States. With the ending of the Clinton administration, it is appropriate to take stock of developments affecting African-Americans over the last eight years.
The sharp rise in the prison population; the epidemic of police murder and brutality; the escalation of hate crimes; and the continuing incarceration of political prisoners who came out of the civil rights and progressive movements of the 1960s and 1970s such as Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiatta Acoli, Leonard Peltier, Eddie Marshall Conway, and many others; illustrates clearly that the vision of a genuine democratic society is far from being realized. Fortunately, on the eve of the administration of George W. Bush, a new coalition of progressive forces are coming together to protest the massive assaults on democracy and human rights that are so pervasive in the present period.
Organizations from the civil rights, youth, women's, anti-imperialist and the new abolitionists movemens are gathering in Washington, D.C. to make their voices heard in opposition to the right-wing political coup that resulted from the mass disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of African-Americans and other voters in Florida and throughoutthe country last Nov. 7. Demonstators will voice their discontent over the growing prison population, now numbering over 2 million people and the existence of over 3,500 people on death row. They will seek to expose the draconian and right-wing character of the Bush cabinet appointments including people such as John Ashcroft, an avowed racist and opponent of the rights of women.
These actions will culminate on Jan. 20 with mass demonstrations in the nation's capital. The speeches, slogans, banners and other forms of expression that will be put forward this week are far more representative of the true legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement of the post world war II period than the dry and dishonest platitudes being put forward by the corporate media and professional politicians.
Dubya's trip to Houston on Monday that will ostensibly represent his tribute to Dr. King is an act of hypocrisy and villification. Dr. King played a leading role in the struggle to win the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, that guaranteed universal suffrage in the United States.
The stealing of the elections in Florida and the subsequent actions by the US Supreme Court was a gross attack on the legacy of Dr. King and everything he stood for during his lifetime. It will be up to the progressive human forces of the 21st Century to carry on the true legacy of Dr. King and all other fighters for human rights and genuine democracy. Those who are complicit in the destruction of Dr. King's legacy and dream must and will be exposed for their treachery by the new face of human rights and democracy that is emerging from the bottom of society to fight against those social elements who are attempting to reimpose slavery and fascism in the modern era.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pan-African News Wire articles may be broadly forwarded for non-profit educational and research purposes.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Detroit MLK Day March & Rally Set For Jan. 16
This year's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. March and Rally will be held on the federally designated holiday in honor of the slain civil rights leader on Monday, Jan. 16 beginning at the Central United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit. This is the third annual King Day march in Detroit. The project was initiated in 2004 by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI). Now the Detroit MLK Committee has grown to encompass many organizations, schools and religious institutions.
For Immediate Release
Media Advisory
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Event: Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March, Jan. 16
Central United Methodist Church, Noon Rally
Woodward Ave. at Adams, Downtown
March Thru Downtown Beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Contact: The Detroit MLK Committee
5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202
Tel. (313) 680-5508
E-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net
URL: http://www.mecawi.org
Annual MLK Day Freedom March & Rally to be Held Monday January 16 Beginning at Central United Methodist Church
This year's plans for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally are well underway. The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 will be a monumental year as it relates to the struggles for peace and social justice.
With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the growing socio-economic crisis in the country, people of conscious need outlets to express their determination to see fundamental changes in our lifetimes. The march and rally on January 16 will provide such an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change.
The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies. On Saturday, January 7 at Noon, the MLK Day Planning Committee will meet at the Central United Methodist Church.
We are in need of volunteers to assist us in distributing leaflets/posters, to work as marshalls, puppets and media aides during the march, gaining endorsers and co-sponsors, donating items for the outreach programs supporting the homeless and the needy as well as mobilizing people throughout the city of Detroit and the southeastern Michigan region to participate in this historic annual event.
Please join us in building this important event. This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King in downtown Detroit. For more information just contact us by telephone, e-mail or regular mail.
Flyers and sponsorship forms for the MLK Day events can be downloaded from the MECAWI website at http://www.mecawi.org or leaflets are available for pick-up at the Central United Methodist Church information desk located on Woodward avenue at Adams in downtown Detroit.
In Solidarity, Abayomi Azikiwe,
Detroit MLK Committee
Media Advisory
Tuesday, January 3, 2006
Event: Dr. Martin Luther King Day Freedom March, Jan. 16
Central United Methodist Church, Noon Rally
Woodward Ave. at Adams, Downtown
March Thru Downtown Beginning at 1:00 p.m.
Contact: The Detroit MLK Committee
5922 Second Ave., Detroit, MI 48202
Tel. (313) 680-5508
E-mail: mlkdetroit@comcast.net
URL: http://www.mecawi.org
Annual MLK Day Freedom March & Rally to be Held Monday January 16 Beginning at Central United Methodist Church
This year's plans for the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day march and rally are well underway. The theme for 2006 is "Freedom From the Shackles of War, Racism & Poverty." 2006 will be a monumental year as it relates to the struggles for peace and social justice.
With the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the growing socio-economic crisis in the country, people of conscious need outlets to express their determination to see fundamental changes in our lifetimes. The march and rally on January 16 will provide such an opportunity to connect with other progressive people and to build networks aimed at fostering change.
The growing budget deficit in Detroit, the attacks on the standard of living of working people by the corporate structures, the efforts to outlaw affirmative action in Michigan and the total neglect of hundreds of thousands of our brothers and sisters displaced from New Orleans and the Gulf region, illustrates clearly the necessity of the majority of the population to take control of their own destinies. On Saturday, January 7 at Noon, the MLK Day Planning Committee will meet at the Central United Methodist Church.
We are in need of volunteers to assist us in distributing leaflets/posters, to work as marshalls, puppets and media aides during the march, gaining endorsers and co-sponsors, donating items for the outreach programs supporting the homeless and the needy as well as mobilizing people throughout the city of Detroit and the southeastern Michigan region to participate in this historic annual event.
Please join us in building this important event. This is the third consecutive year that a demonstration has been organized to specifically honor the peace and social justice legacy of Dr. King in downtown Detroit. For more information just contact us by telephone, e-mail or regular mail.
Flyers and sponsorship forms for the MLK Day events can be downloaded from the MECAWI website at http://www.mecawi.org or leaflets are available for pick-up at the Central United Methodist Church information desk located on Woodward avenue at Adams in downtown Detroit.
In Solidarity, Abayomi Azikiwe,
Detroit MLK Committee
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
President Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union, Patriot Front (ZANU-PF)
Despite the efforts of the United Kingdom and the United States, the ZANU-PF ruling party of Zimbabwe continues to dominate the political landscape. President Mugabe has drawn support from the majority of the Zimbabwean people. Zimbabwe foreign policy has continued to strengthen relations with the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa as well as the African Union (AU). Support from the Peoples Republic of China prevented the southern African nation from being brought before the United Nations Security Council on false charges during 2005.
Zanu (PF) dominates political landscape
Kennedy Mavhumashava
Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Chronicle
Zanu (PF) again dominated the local political landscape with two landslide electoral victories but the unfolding bickering in MDC also hogged the limelight towards the end of the year.The ruling party scored a massive victory during the March parliamentary elections, by winning 78 of the 120 contested seats. Its main challenger, MDC managed 41, down from the 57 it held going into the plebiscite.
A University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer, Mr Eldred Masungure singled out the ruling party’s electoral victories and Operation Murambatsvina as key highlights of the year. He said although the clean up campaign, that the Government launched in May, was largely a developmental programme, it elicited a political response from Britain, United States and the United Nations.“The most important development was the clean-up exercise,” he said.
“Whether it was political or not depends on how you look at it. The Government said it was designed to stamp out criminal activities and bring about order. But the response to it, especially from the United Nations and the West, was clearly political.”
The Government launched the clean-up scheme in May and followed it up with a nationwide rebuilding exercise, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle under which thousands of core houses, vendor marts and factory shells have been built and allocated to those who need them. The Government has made more than $1 trillion available for the massive project.
After the launch of clean-up campaign, the West criticised it and brought it to the attention of the UN. The world body obliged by sending its envoy, Mrs Anna Tibaijuka a few months ago. She toured the country and wrote a report that was critical of Operation Murambatsvina. A few weeks ago, the UN sent another emissary, Mr Jan Egeland, who like Mrs Tibaijuka came up with another adverse report. On elections, Mr Masunungure said they were characterised by peace.
He however said while the senatorial elections, held last month were a key political development they were marred by “unprecedented” voter apathy. “The atmosphere was calmer in both elections compared to previous ones.
But if you see that in some constituencies during the election as few as 5 000 people voted against average registered voters as many as 100 000, you will realise how poor the turnout was. That was unprecedented. But I think that the November election was more eventful outside the ballot box because of the intra-party conflict in the MDC.”
Results of the election showed that the ruling party sustained its recovery from the heavy losses of the 2000 poll by winning 43 of the 50 contested seats. Earlier on, it had won 19 seats unopposed after opposition parties failed to field candidates. Zanu (PF) won all the five seats in Matabeleland South and grabbed others in Matabeleland North, Harare and Chitungwiza, which were regarded as MDC strongholds.
However the plebiscite opened up deep divisions in the MDC after its leadership differed sharply on whether or not to participate. The party held a national council meeting on October 12, to decide whether to field candidates or not. The issue was brought to a vote and 33 officials voted for participation while 31 opposed the decision.
Party leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, who had previously advocated a boycott, rejected the outcome. That precipitated a split of the party into a pro-Senate camp led by secretary general, Professor Welshman Ncube and an anti-Senate faction, which Mr Tsvangirai leads.
Now, the British-backed party has almost collapsed with the factions operating from two different headquarters, each having established parallel structures ahead of its congress scheduled for next February.
The Upper House elections were preceded by the passing of Constitution Number 17 by Parliament. Among others, the milestone amendment provides for the establishment of a bicameral legislature and the finalisation of the land question. Vice-President Joice Mujuru marked her first anniversary in office this month after her election to the ruling party Presidium last December. Professor Heneri Dzinotyiwei, head of political think tank, Zimbabwe Integrated Programme said:“She has been in office for a year now.
We have seen similar developments elsewhere in Africa where women have risen to higher political positions. That happened in South Africa where the deputy president is a woman and in Liberia recently where a woman was elected president.”
An independent political analyst, Mr Augustine Timbe said the Government sustained its Look East policy with more benefits accruing to the country from many countries in Asia.“We saw a further strengthening of that policy.
Zimbabwe has hosted many high level political and business delegations from countries like China, Malaysia, Vietnam and others in Asia,” Mr Timbe said. “China has become the second biggest investor in Zimbabwe after Britain and is on course to matching London. A few months ago, the Air Force of Zimbabwe took delivery of jets from the Asian giant. The same applies to Air Zimbabwe. We have also seen China pursuing investments in many sectors of the economy such as mining, agriculture and energy. Iran is also coming in strongly.”
Turning to foreign affairs, Mr Timbe noted that President Mugabe has continued to defend and explain Government policies at international gatherings while SADC, African Union and the majority of UN members maintained their support for the country despite western pressure.
Mr Masunungure said the ongoing squabbles in the MDC are likely to result in a major “reconfiguration” of the local political landscape.“It is going to spill into next year and will significantly re-shape our politics. It will be a different Zimbabwe next year with a weakened MDC compared to the past five years,” said the political scientist.
He was dismissive of the United People’s Movement, a planned political party linked to former Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo. It is rumoured that the party may be “launched” before the end of this month.“Even if it is launched,” said Mr Masunungure; “I see it as a passing cloud. It will be a trivial political development and the party will not be a permanent feature in local politics, - if it is launched that is.”
However, the highlights of the year must also include the antics of Mr Egypt Dzinemunhenzva, leader of little-known African National Party.
Always sporting his light-coloured jacket on top of a maroon jersey with a huge and almost flapping collar, Mr Dzinemunhenzva amused television viewers ahead of the Senatorial elections with his daring, and sometimes overly basic understanding of national issues. The veteran politician and Mutoko villager was campaigning for the Chikomba senatorial constituency, making food shortages in the area, his campaign watchword.
Like on many occasions in the past he heavily lost. But he is likely to be back in the fray come the 2008 presidential election.
Kennedy Mavhumashava
Courtesy of the Zimbabwe Chronicle
Zanu (PF) again dominated the local political landscape with two landslide electoral victories but the unfolding bickering in MDC also hogged the limelight towards the end of the year.The ruling party scored a massive victory during the March parliamentary elections, by winning 78 of the 120 contested seats. Its main challenger, MDC managed 41, down from the 57 it held going into the plebiscite.
A University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer, Mr Eldred Masungure singled out the ruling party’s electoral victories and Operation Murambatsvina as key highlights of the year. He said although the clean up campaign, that the Government launched in May, was largely a developmental programme, it elicited a political response from Britain, United States and the United Nations.“The most important development was the clean-up exercise,” he said.
“Whether it was political or not depends on how you look at it. The Government said it was designed to stamp out criminal activities and bring about order. But the response to it, especially from the United Nations and the West, was clearly political.”
The Government launched the clean-up scheme in May and followed it up with a nationwide rebuilding exercise, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle under which thousands of core houses, vendor marts and factory shells have been built and allocated to those who need them. The Government has made more than $1 trillion available for the massive project.
After the launch of clean-up campaign, the West criticised it and brought it to the attention of the UN. The world body obliged by sending its envoy, Mrs Anna Tibaijuka a few months ago. She toured the country and wrote a report that was critical of Operation Murambatsvina. A few weeks ago, the UN sent another emissary, Mr Jan Egeland, who like Mrs Tibaijuka came up with another adverse report. On elections, Mr Masunungure said they were characterised by peace.
He however said while the senatorial elections, held last month were a key political development they were marred by “unprecedented” voter apathy. “The atmosphere was calmer in both elections compared to previous ones.
But if you see that in some constituencies during the election as few as 5 000 people voted against average registered voters as many as 100 000, you will realise how poor the turnout was. That was unprecedented. But I think that the November election was more eventful outside the ballot box because of the intra-party conflict in the MDC.”
Results of the election showed that the ruling party sustained its recovery from the heavy losses of the 2000 poll by winning 43 of the 50 contested seats. Earlier on, it had won 19 seats unopposed after opposition parties failed to field candidates. Zanu (PF) won all the five seats in Matabeleland South and grabbed others in Matabeleland North, Harare and Chitungwiza, which were regarded as MDC strongholds.
However the plebiscite opened up deep divisions in the MDC after its leadership differed sharply on whether or not to participate. The party held a national council meeting on October 12, to decide whether to field candidates or not. The issue was brought to a vote and 33 officials voted for participation while 31 opposed the decision.
Party leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, who had previously advocated a boycott, rejected the outcome. That precipitated a split of the party into a pro-Senate camp led by secretary general, Professor Welshman Ncube and an anti-Senate faction, which Mr Tsvangirai leads.
Now, the British-backed party has almost collapsed with the factions operating from two different headquarters, each having established parallel structures ahead of its congress scheduled for next February.
The Upper House elections were preceded by the passing of Constitution Number 17 by Parliament. Among others, the milestone amendment provides for the establishment of a bicameral legislature and the finalisation of the land question. Vice-President Joice Mujuru marked her first anniversary in office this month after her election to the ruling party Presidium last December. Professor Heneri Dzinotyiwei, head of political think tank, Zimbabwe Integrated Programme said:“She has been in office for a year now.
We have seen similar developments elsewhere in Africa where women have risen to higher political positions. That happened in South Africa where the deputy president is a woman and in Liberia recently where a woman was elected president.”
An independent political analyst, Mr Augustine Timbe said the Government sustained its Look East policy with more benefits accruing to the country from many countries in Asia.“We saw a further strengthening of that policy.
Zimbabwe has hosted many high level political and business delegations from countries like China, Malaysia, Vietnam and others in Asia,” Mr Timbe said. “China has become the second biggest investor in Zimbabwe after Britain and is on course to matching London. A few months ago, the Air Force of Zimbabwe took delivery of jets from the Asian giant. The same applies to Air Zimbabwe. We have also seen China pursuing investments in many sectors of the economy such as mining, agriculture and energy. Iran is also coming in strongly.”
Turning to foreign affairs, Mr Timbe noted that President Mugabe has continued to defend and explain Government policies at international gatherings while SADC, African Union and the majority of UN members maintained their support for the country despite western pressure.
Mr Masunungure said the ongoing squabbles in the MDC are likely to result in a major “reconfiguration” of the local political landscape.“It is going to spill into next year and will significantly re-shape our politics. It will be a different Zimbabwe next year with a weakened MDC compared to the past five years,” said the political scientist.
He was dismissive of the United People’s Movement, a planned political party linked to former Minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo. It is rumoured that the party may be “launched” before the end of this month.“Even if it is launched,” said Mr Masunungure; “I see it as a passing cloud. It will be a trivial political development and the party will not be a permanent feature in local politics, - if it is launched that is.”
However, the highlights of the year must also include the antics of Mr Egypt Dzinemunhenzva, leader of little-known African National Party.
Always sporting his light-coloured jacket on top of a maroon jersey with a huge and almost flapping collar, Mr Dzinemunhenzva amused television viewers ahead of the Senatorial elections with his daring, and sometimes overly basic understanding of national issues. The veteran politician and Mutoko villager was campaigning for the Chikomba senatorial constituency, making food shortages in the area, his campaign watchword.
Like on many occasions in the past he heavily lost. But he is likely to be back in the fray come the 2008 presidential election.
President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, Recently Elected in the United Republic of Tanzania
One of the most respected and stable states in post-independence Africa has been the United Republic of Tanzania. The ruling Chama Cha Mapenduzi (CCM) has maintained political control since 1977. This party was originally called the Tanzanian African National Union (TANU) but was restructured during the tenth anniverary of the Arusha Declaration, the document issued by the Party in 1967 calling for a socialist Tanzania. The article below focuses on the the struggle for gender equality in this east African nation.
Tanzania makes progress towards gender equality
SANF
THE new parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania to be sworn in this week will include almost 30 percent women members. The Tanzanian parliament, the Bunge, has been increased to 324 members, made up of 232 members elected on December 14 with the remainder appointed.
There are 75 seats guaranteed for women, representing an additional 30 percent of the number of elected seats.Ten members are appointed by the Union President, and five seats are occupied by members of the Zanzibar House of Repres-entatives. The remaining two seats are reserved for the Attorney General and the Speaker of Parliament. The 75 women members are appointed by the National Electoral Commission drawn from lists submitted by the parties in parliament, and based on the number of votes won by the parties represented in parliament.
Most of these seats will go to Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which easily won the parliamentary elections, taking 206 of the elected seats, that is almost 90 percent of the elected seats. CCM presidential candidate Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete also won the presidential election with 80,2 percent of the popular vote. Opposition parties won seven parliamentary seats on the mainland, with five going to Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) and one each to the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP) and the United Democ-ratic Party (UDP).
Some of the constituency seats were also won by women, including most of the 19 CCM women candidates, thus bringing the total of women in parliament to 28-29 percent of the total 324 seats. CCM won more than double the number of constituency votes of the combined opposition candidates, often far higher in individual constituencies. CCM also swept all parliamentary and council seats in Dar es Salaam, including seats such as Temeke, previously seen as opposition strongholds. Some 70 percent of registered voters turned out at the polls.
The picture was more divided in the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar, where the southern island of Unguja returned all but one member from CCM while the northern island of Pemba returned a full slate of 18 opposition CUF members to the Bunge. This means the total number of elected seats for the opposition in the Bunge stands at 26, and the next leader of the opposition in parliament will come from Pemba, as CUF failed to win a single seat in mainland Tanzania.
The previous CUF leader in parliament lost his seat to CCM in the northern mainland constituency of Bukoba Urban. The Union election in Zanzibar was a mirror image of the local elections held there on October 30 for the Zanzibar House of Representatives, with CUF winning all but one seat on the southern island while CUF swept the seats in Pemba.
The United Republic of Tanzania was formed in 1964 by two independent states of Tanganyika and Zanzibar with the objective of building a unified society based on freedom, human rights and peaceful existence. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region of the Union that also elects a local president and a parliament. The latter enacts laws except on constitutionally decreed Union matters, such as foreign affairs, home affairs and defence. CUF has refused to accept the election results in Zanzibar despite the approval of local, regional and international election observers, including the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the Commonwealth.
SANF
THE new parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania to be sworn in this week will include almost 30 percent women members. The Tanzanian parliament, the Bunge, has been increased to 324 members, made up of 232 members elected on December 14 with the remainder appointed.
There are 75 seats guaranteed for women, representing an additional 30 percent of the number of elected seats.Ten members are appointed by the Union President, and five seats are occupied by members of the Zanzibar House of Repres-entatives. The remaining two seats are reserved for the Attorney General and the Speaker of Parliament. The 75 women members are appointed by the National Electoral Commission drawn from lists submitted by the parties in parliament, and based on the number of votes won by the parties represented in parliament.
Most of these seats will go to Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), which easily won the parliamentary elections, taking 206 of the elected seats, that is almost 90 percent of the elected seats. CCM presidential candidate Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete also won the presidential election with 80,2 percent of the popular vote. Opposition parties won seven parliamentary seats on the mainland, with five going to Chama cha Demokrasia na Maendeleo (Chadema) and one each to the Tanzania Labour Party (TLP) and the United Democ-ratic Party (UDP).
Some of the constituency seats were also won by women, including most of the 19 CCM women candidates, thus bringing the total of women in parliament to 28-29 percent of the total 324 seats. CCM won more than double the number of constituency votes of the combined opposition candidates, often far higher in individual constituencies. CCM also swept all parliamentary and council seats in Dar es Salaam, including seats such as Temeke, previously seen as opposition strongholds. Some 70 percent of registered voters turned out at the polls.
The picture was more divided in the semi-autonomous region of Zanzibar, where the southern island of Unguja returned all but one member from CCM while the northern island of Pemba returned a full slate of 18 opposition CUF members to the Bunge. This means the total number of elected seats for the opposition in the Bunge stands at 26, and the next leader of the opposition in parliament will come from Pemba, as CUF failed to win a single seat in mainland Tanzania.
The previous CUF leader in parliament lost his seat to CCM in the northern mainland constituency of Bukoba Urban. The Union election in Zanzibar was a mirror image of the local elections held there on October 30 for the Zanzibar House of Representatives, with CUF winning all but one seat on the southern island while CUF swept the seats in Pemba.
The United Republic of Tanzania was formed in 1964 by two independent states of Tanganyika and Zanzibar with the objective of building a unified society based on freedom, human rights and peaceful existence. Zanzibar is a semi-autonomous region of the Union that also elects a local president and a parliament. The latter enacts laws except on constitutionally decreed Union matters, such as foreign affairs, home affairs and defence. CUF has refused to accept the election results in Zanzibar despite the approval of local, regional and international election observers, including the Southern African Development Community, the African Union and the Commonwealth.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Roger Toussaint Has Become One of the Most Significant Labor Leaders in the United States
Roger Toussaint, President of the Transit Workers Union (TWU)Local 100 directed the rank and file to return to their jobs as soon as possible. This three day strike interupted the city of New York by stranding 7 million commuters who rely on public transport every day. The business elites, the corporate press, the billionaire mayor and the conservative governor all attacked the TWU ruthlessly. They were threatened with jail time and multi-million dollar fines. The TWU Executive Board must now demand amnesty from these retaliatory actions on the part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) and their corporate allies.
TWU Local 100 Executive Board Votes to End Strike, Return to Work
For more information log on to the TWU Local 100 website:
http://www.twulocal100.org
Dec. 22--The first NYC system-wide transit strike in 25 years ended today. Local 100 had to walk out to stop the TA’s 11th hour pension ambush. We walked out strong, and we walk back stronger. Thousands of transit workers have been on freezing cold picket lines around the clock for three days. The vote of the TWU Local 100 Executive Board to overwhelmingly accept the recommendation of the New York State Mediators means we will now start reporting to work.
In the face of an unprecedented media assault, the average New Yorker supported the TWU and blamed the MTA for the strike. Our riders knew we did not abandon them, and they did not abandon us. Public support from unions, communities, clergy and elected officials helped create the atmosphere for an end to the strike.
The details will be coming to all transit workers very soon. Every TWU member should be proud that our Union stood up for justice.
Stay United! Stay Strong!
December 22, 2005
State Mediators' Plan Clears Way to Resolve 60-Hour Ordeal
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and SEWELL CHAN
New York Times
On the third day of a citywide transit strike that has left millions without subway and bus service, union members began returning to work this afternoon, ending a 60-hour walkout that caused much hardship but also put on display the creativity and resilience of New York commuters. Union leaders ordered an end to the strike, the first in 25 years, early this afternoon after state mediators brokered a deal with transit officials.
Limited subway and bus service could resume later tonight, though normal service might not be restored until early Friday morning, officials said. "We have an enormous system," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference. "It can't be turned on or off with a flip of a switch."
"This was really a very big test for our city and I think it's fair to say we passed the test with flying colors," the mayor said. "We did what we had to do to keep the city running and running safely." The order to return to work came after executive board of the Transit Workers Union, Local 100, voted 38 to 5 with two abstentions to accept a preliminary framework of a settlement as a basis to end the walkout.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had already agreed to the framework, which was devised by state mediators after all-night negotiations with the union and the authority. "We thank riders for their patience and forbearance," Roger Toussaint, the president of the union, said outside union headquarters this afternoon. "We will be providing various details regarding the outcome of this strike in the next several days."
A few minutes earlier, one of the executive board members, George Perlstein, who said he had voted against the settlement plan, angrily told reporters that the union had not achieved its goals. "We got nothing," he said. "Absolutely nothing." On its Web site, the union claimed victory and told members to "Hold your head high when you report to work."
"In the face of an unprecedented media assault, the average New Yorker supported the TWU and blamed the MTA for the strike," the union said in a statement. Even as workers began returning to work, Gov. George E. Pataki said penalties against union members and leaders for the illegal walkout would stand. "There is a lesson to be learned from this: no one is above the law. You break the law and the consequences are real," he said at a press conference at Rockefeller Center. "They cannot be waived. They will not be waived."
But a short time later, noting the need for both sides to complete their negotiations, Justice Theodore T. Jones of the State Supreme Court adjourned until Jan. 20 a hearing on possible fines and jail terms for union leaders under the Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public employees. The hearing was originally scheduled for this morning and later delayed till 4 p.m.
The strike forced New Yorkers, who are heavily dependent upon public transportation, to walk, bike, hitchhike and endure traffic jams as early as 3:30 a.m. to get into Manhattan for work. Weary commuters welcomed the end of the strike.
"I'm relieved," Jennifer Stephens, 29, a publicist who lives in West New York, N.J., and works in downtown Brooklyn, said at Grand Central Terminal this afternoon. "I can't believe they went on strike to begin with." Ms. Stephens said the strike had forced her to take three days off work, and said, "I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't have any more days I could take off." She added that she had not been able to shop for Christmas. "It was frustrating. It put my life on hold. I wasn't able to get anything done."
Workers received word of the strike's end in the middle of the afternoon. At the Casey Stengel bus depot on Roosevelt Avenue, across from Shea Stadium in Queens, about 100 picketing workers looked surprised after a union official at the site got a call on a cellphone, then picked up a megaphone and announced that the strike was over.
"If you're on for a 4 o'clock shift, you have to go to work," the official said. There was some confusion among workers, who didn't have their work uniforms with them and had questions about the end of the walkout. "I feel like we lost if we go back to work without a contract," said Fazlu Miah, 43, of Queens, a bus driver who works out of the depot.
In a statement, Lawrence G. Reuter, president of New York city Transit, said that restarting the system was "complicated," and would take between 10 and 18 hours for subways - and "somewhat" less than that for buses. "As employees report to duty, an assessment is made to determine what level of service can be provided with the personnel available," the statement said.
"By the time the first trains are ready to roll, all 468 subway stations will be opened, but service levels will be ramped up incrementally." He said the system would have to undergo thorough safety inspections as well. Word of a possible end to the strike began filtering out earlier in the day and was made officially announced by state mediators.
"In the best interests of the public, which both parties serve, we have suggested, and they have agreed, to resume negotiations while the T.W.U. takes steps toward returning its membership to work," Richard A. Curreri, the lead state mediator, said at a news conference this morning.
However, he noted that a final contract agreement would still take some work. "While these discussions have been fruitful, an agreement remains out of the parties' reach at this time," he said. "It is clear to us, however, that both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences."
The return-to-work agreement, said several people close to the negotiations who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive stage of the talks, would give every side some of what it asked for. It would allow Mr. Pataki to save face because the final negotiations would not take place until the strikers return to work, the people said, and it would apparently allow the Mr. Toussaint, the union's president, to save face because, they believe, the authority's pension demands - which are at the crux of the deadlock - have been significantly scaled back.
Mr. Curreri and two other mediators were appointed by the state's Public Employment Relations Board on Tuesday afternoon, after the union declared a strike at 3 a.m. that day and the authority said the talks had reached an impasse. Mr. Curreri, the board's director of conciliation, invited two veteran mediators - Martin F. Scheinman, a longtime arbitrator who has negotiated many labor agreements, and Alan R. Viani, the former chief negotiator at D.C. 37, the city's largest municipal workers union - to join him. All three met with both sides for hours at a time on Wednesday and into the night.
The authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, and Mr. Toussaint both participated in the talks on Wednesday and early this morning. The news was an abrupt change from Wednesday's developments, when a war of rhetoric surrounding the strike entered a louder and more contentious phase, with Mr. Toussaint demanding that thorny pension issues be removed from the table before the strikers returned to work.
But Governor Pataki joined Mayor Bloomberg in saying that the transit workers must end the strike before negotiations could resume, contradicting the M.T.A.'s earlier position that it would talk anytime.
In addition to disagreements over pensions, the union and the M.T.A. have also had a difficult time on health care benefits.
The transportation authority had originally demanded that future transit workers contribute 2 percent of their pay toward health premiums. It reduced that demand to 1 percent several days before the strike deadline, then dropped it altogether, just hours before the strike deadline. Current workers do not pay premiums for the union's basic health plan. Mr. Toussaint's union has repeatedly said he would not agree to a contract that treated future workers worse than current workers - on pension or health insurance.
Several people close to the negotiations said they expected the two sides to discuss proposals to have the union agree to have all workers, current and future, pay health premiums Repeatedly saying that he wants to beat back the wave of concessions demanded by managements across the country, Mr. Toussaint has also insisted that he would not agree to a contract that required all workers to pay health premiums. Mr. Toussaint had attacked the mayor and the governor Wednesday for what he called the use of "insulting and offensive language," apparently referring to the mayor's characterization of the strike by the city's 33,700 subway and bus workers as "thuggish" and "selfish."
In a speech that belied the union's tenuous position - it is already being fined $1 million a day - Mr. Toussaint seemed to cast the conflict in a social-justice context. In describing the struggle of his largely minority union, he invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, saying: "There is a higher calling than the law. That is justice and equality."
The transit strike, the first in a quarter century, began at 3 a.m. Tuesday after negotiations between the union and the transit authority broke down over the authority's last-minute demand that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions - up from the 2 percent that current workers pay. The authority has said it needs to rein in its soaring pension costs. Mr. Toussaint has argued that, under state law, it is illegal for the authority to insist on including a pension demand as part of a settlement.
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Reporting for this article was contributed by Steven Greenhouse, Vikas Bajaj, Matthew Sweeney, Corey Kilgannon, Michael Cooper, Janon Fisher, Thomas J. Lueck, Jesse McKinley, Colin Moynihan, Fernanda Santos and Shadi Rahimi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information log on to the TWU Local 100 website:
http://www.twulocal100.org
Dec. 22--The first NYC system-wide transit strike in 25 years ended today. Local 100 had to walk out to stop the TA’s 11th hour pension ambush. We walked out strong, and we walk back stronger. Thousands of transit workers have been on freezing cold picket lines around the clock for three days. The vote of the TWU Local 100 Executive Board to overwhelmingly accept the recommendation of the New York State Mediators means we will now start reporting to work.
In the face of an unprecedented media assault, the average New Yorker supported the TWU and blamed the MTA for the strike. Our riders knew we did not abandon them, and they did not abandon us. Public support from unions, communities, clergy and elected officials helped create the atmosphere for an end to the strike.
The details will be coming to all transit workers very soon. Every TWU member should be proud that our Union stood up for justice.
Stay United! Stay Strong!
December 22, 2005
State Mediators' Plan Clears Way to Resolve 60-Hour Ordeal
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and SEWELL CHAN
New York Times
On the third day of a citywide transit strike that has left millions without subway and bus service, union members began returning to work this afternoon, ending a 60-hour walkout that caused much hardship but also put on display the creativity and resilience of New York commuters. Union leaders ordered an end to the strike, the first in 25 years, early this afternoon after state mediators brokered a deal with transit officials.
Limited subway and bus service could resume later tonight, though normal service might not be restored until early Friday morning, officials said. "We have an enormous system," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a City Hall press conference. "It can't be turned on or off with a flip of a switch."
"This was really a very big test for our city and I think it's fair to say we passed the test with flying colors," the mayor said. "We did what we had to do to keep the city running and running safely." The order to return to work came after executive board of the Transit Workers Union, Local 100, voted 38 to 5 with two abstentions to accept a preliminary framework of a settlement as a basis to end the walkout.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority had already agreed to the framework, which was devised by state mediators after all-night negotiations with the union and the authority. "We thank riders for their patience and forbearance," Roger Toussaint, the president of the union, said outside union headquarters this afternoon. "We will be providing various details regarding the outcome of this strike in the next several days."
A few minutes earlier, one of the executive board members, George Perlstein, who said he had voted against the settlement plan, angrily told reporters that the union had not achieved its goals. "We got nothing," he said. "Absolutely nothing." On its Web site, the union claimed victory and told members to "Hold your head high when you report to work."
"In the face of an unprecedented media assault, the average New Yorker supported the TWU and blamed the MTA for the strike," the union said in a statement. Even as workers began returning to work, Gov. George E. Pataki said penalties against union members and leaders for the illegal walkout would stand. "There is a lesson to be learned from this: no one is above the law. You break the law and the consequences are real," he said at a press conference at Rockefeller Center. "They cannot be waived. They will not be waived."
But a short time later, noting the need for both sides to complete their negotiations, Justice Theodore T. Jones of the State Supreme Court adjourned until Jan. 20 a hearing on possible fines and jail terms for union leaders under the Taylor Law prohibiting strikes by public employees. The hearing was originally scheduled for this morning and later delayed till 4 p.m.
The strike forced New Yorkers, who are heavily dependent upon public transportation, to walk, bike, hitchhike and endure traffic jams as early as 3:30 a.m. to get into Manhattan for work. Weary commuters welcomed the end of the strike.
"I'm relieved," Jennifer Stephens, 29, a publicist who lives in West New York, N.J., and works in downtown Brooklyn, said at Grand Central Terminal this afternoon. "I can't believe they went on strike to begin with." Ms. Stephens said the strike had forced her to take three days off work, and said, "I didn't know what was going to happen. I didn't have any more days I could take off." She added that she had not been able to shop for Christmas. "It was frustrating. It put my life on hold. I wasn't able to get anything done."
Workers received word of the strike's end in the middle of the afternoon. At the Casey Stengel bus depot on Roosevelt Avenue, across from Shea Stadium in Queens, about 100 picketing workers looked surprised after a union official at the site got a call on a cellphone, then picked up a megaphone and announced that the strike was over.
"If you're on for a 4 o'clock shift, you have to go to work," the official said. There was some confusion among workers, who didn't have their work uniforms with them and had questions about the end of the walkout. "I feel like we lost if we go back to work without a contract," said Fazlu Miah, 43, of Queens, a bus driver who works out of the depot.
In a statement, Lawrence G. Reuter, president of New York city Transit, said that restarting the system was "complicated," and would take between 10 and 18 hours for subways - and "somewhat" less than that for buses. "As employees report to duty, an assessment is made to determine what level of service can be provided with the personnel available," the statement said.
"By the time the first trains are ready to roll, all 468 subway stations will be opened, but service levels will be ramped up incrementally." He said the system would have to undergo thorough safety inspections as well. Word of a possible end to the strike began filtering out earlier in the day and was made officially announced by state mediators.
"In the best interests of the public, which both parties serve, we have suggested, and they have agreed, to resume negotiations while the T.W.U. takes steps toward returning its membership to work," Richard A. Curreri, the lead state mediator, said at a news conference this morning.
However, he noted that a final contract agreement would still take some work. "While these discussions have been fruitful, an agreement remains out of the parties' reach at this time," he said. "It is clear to us, however, that both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences."
The return-to-work agreement, said several people close to the negotiations who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive stage of the talks, would give every side some of what it asked for. It would allow Mr. Pataki to save face because the final negotiations would not take place until the strikers return to work, the people said, and it would apparently allow the Mr. Toussaint, the union's president, to save face because, they believe, the authority's pension demands - which are at the crux of the deadlock - have been significantly scaled back.
Mr. Curreri and two other mediators were appointed by the state's Public Employment Relations Board on Tuesday afternoon, after the union declared a strike at 3 a.m. that day and the authority said the talks had reached an impasse. Mr. Curreri, the board's director of conciliation, invited two veteran mediators - Martin F. Scheinman, a longtime arbitrator who has negotiated many labor agreements, and Alan R. Viani, the former chief negotiator at D.C. 37, the city's largest municipal workers union - to join him. All three met with both sides for hours at a time on Wednesday and into the night.
The authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, and Mr. Toussaint both participated in the talks on Wednesday and early this morning. The news was an abrupt change from Wednesday's developments, when a war of rhetoric surrounding the strike entered a louder and more contentious phase, with Mr. Toussaint demanding that thorny pension issues be removed from the table before the strikers returned to work.
But Governor Pataki joined Mayor Bloomberg in saying that the transit workers must end the strike before negotiations could resume, contradicting the M.T.A.'s earlier position that it would talk anytime.
In addition to disagreements over pensions, the union and the M.T.A. have also had a difficult time on health care benefits.
The transportation authority had originally demanded that future transit workers contribute 2 percent of their pay toward health premiums. It reduced that demand to 1 percent several days before the strike deadline, then dropped it altogether, just hours before the strike deadline. Current workers do not pay premiums for the union's basic health plan. Mr. Toussaint's union has repeatedly said he would not agree to a contract that treated future workers worse than current workers - on pension or health insurance.
Several people close to the negotiations said they expected the two sides to discuss proposals to have the union agree to have all workers, current and future, pay health premiums Repeatedly saying that he wants to beat back the wave of concessions demanded by managements across the country, Mr. Toussaint has also insisted that he would not agree to a contract that required all workers to pay health premiums. Mr. Toussaint had attacked the mayor and the governor Wednesday for what he called the use of "insulting and offensive language," apparently referring to the mayor's characterization of the strike by the city's 33,700 subway and bus workers as "thuggish" and "selfish."
In a speech that belied the union's tenuous position - it is already being fined $1 million a day - Mr. Toussaint seemed to cast the conflict in a social-justice context. In describing the struggle of his largely minority union, he invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, saying: "There is a higher calling than the law. That is justice and equality."
The transit strike, the first in a quarter century, began at 3 a.m. Tuesday after negotiations between the union and the transit authority broke down over the authority's last-minute demand that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions - up from the 2 percent that current workers pay. The authority has said it needs to rein in its soaring pension costs. Mr. Toussaint has argued that, under state law, it is illegal for the authority to insist on including a pension demand as part of a settlement.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reporting for this article was contributed by Steven Greenhouse, Vikas Bajaj, Matthew Sweeney, Corey Kilgannon, Michael Cooper, Janon Fisher, Thomas J. Lueck, Jesse McKinley, Colin Moynihan, Fernanda Santos and Shadi Rahimi.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MTA Backs Down on Pension Proposals: TWU Executive to Vote on Proposal
Transport Workers Union leaders today agreed to take a proposal to their executive board aimed at ending the strike. These new proposals came out of discussions with state mediators. The cutbacks proposed by the MTA in the union pension system have been taken off the table. Meanwhile, the MTA are threatening to impose jail time and huge monetary fines on TWU leaders in an effort to break the union and the strike. Corporate media outlets and their business counterparts have denounced the transport workers as "thugs, rats and selfish." Roger Toussaint responded by recounting the heroic struggles of the civil rights movement evoking Rosa Parks and others who stood down threats and possible imprisonment in order to win gains in the struggle for human rights.
December 22, 2005
No Timetable Is Announced on Resumption of Service
By STEVE GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN
New York Times
After meeting with both sides through the night, state mediators have devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract dispute that would allow strikers to return to work later today, the chief mediator said. It is not clear when members of Transit Workers Union, Local 100, would return to work to get subways and buses running again.
The union's executive board must first accept the settlement framework, although mediators said the union's leaders had agreed to ask the executive board to approve the recommendations.
"In the best interests of the public, which both parties serve, we have suggested, and they have agreed, to resume negotiations while the T.W.U. takes steps toward returning its membership to work," Richard A. Curreri, the board's director of conciliation, said at a news conference this morning. "Over the last 48 hours we have met separately with both T.W.U. and the M.T.A.," he said.
"While these discussions have been fruitful, an agreement remains out of the parties' reach at this time. It is clear to us, however, that both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences." Details of a settlement could take at least a day or two longer to be finalized, although buses and subways would be running before that.
The agreement, said several people close to the negotiations, would give every side some of what it asked for. The people insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive stage of the negotiations.
The proposal would allow Gov. George E. Pataki to save face because the final negotiations would not take place until the strikers return to work, the people said, and it would apparently allow the union's president, Roger Toussaint, to save face because, they believe, the authority's pension demands - which are at the crux of the deadlock - have been significantly scaled back.
In light of the progress in negotiations, State Supreme Court Justice Theodore T. Jones delayed a hearing scheduled for this morning on possible fines and jail terms for union leaders under the Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees.
The hearing was rescheduled for 4 p.m. today.
In Albany, Governor Pataki hailed the progress, and credited the Taylor Law, which requires mediation once an impasse is declared. "I just am pleased the Taylor Law, that sets up this process, was in this case followed by both sides and moved things forward in a positive way," Mr. Pataki said in a televised news conference.
Mr. Curreri and two other mediators were appointed by the state's Public Employment Relations Board on Tuesday afternoon after the union declared a strike at 3 a.m. that day and the authority said the talks had reached an impasse. Mr. Curreri, the board's director of conciliation, met with lawyers for the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, that afternoon.
Mr. Curreri also invited two veteran mediators - Martin F. Scheinman, a longtime arbitrator who has negotiated many labor agreements, and Alan R. Viani, the former chief negotiator at D.C. 37, the city's largest municipal workers union - to join him. All three met with both sides for hours at a time on Wednesday and into the night. The authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, and Mr. Toussaint both participated in the talks on Wednesday and early this morning, the people said.
Even if the union calls for strikers to return to work, it could be 18 hours before service is fully restored. Most of the 6,300 subway cars have been placed in underground tunnels or in train yards, one next to another. Supervisors have been running empty trains over the rails to keep the rails polished and prevent rust. The 4,600 buses have been stored and guarded at 18 depots.
Employees would have to return to their shifts, tracks and signals would have to be inspected, and subway cars and buses examined before the subways and buses could run. If all employees promptly returned at the start of their next shift, some subways could begin to run eight hours after managers and supervisors get word that the strikers are returning, officials said.
The news is an abrupt change from Wednesday's developments, when a war of rhetoric surrounding the strike entered a louder and more contentious phase, with Mr. Toussaint demanding that thorny pension issues be removed from the table before the strikers returned to work. But Governor Pataki joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in saying that the transit workers must end the strike before negotiations could resume, contradicting the M.T.A.'s earlier position that it would talk anytime.
The authority took the highly unusual step of running television advertisements urging individual workers to return to their jobs. Even so, there was evidence of a willingness to compromise, at least behind the scenes, as both sides met separately with state mediators - the first possible step toward taking the dispute to arbitration.
And late last night, members of the union's executive board were summoned to headquarters for an emergency meeting at 1 a.m. Then, a short time later, it was postponed indefinitely. For his part, Mr. Toussaint attacked the mayor and the governor for what he called the use of "insulting and offensive language," apparently referring to the mayor's characterization of the strike by the city's 33,700 subway and bus workers as "thuggish" and "selfish."
In a speech that belied the union's tenuous position - it is already being fined $1 million a day - Mr. Toussaint seemed to cast the conflict in a social-justice context. In describing the struggle of his largely minority union, he invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, saying: "There is a higher calling than the law. That is justice and equality."
Despite Mr. Toussaint's vow not to return to the table until the pension demand was dropped, he and his top lawyers were meeting with state mediators for hours at a time. State mediation could have either led to a solution to the differences, or forced the two sides to binding arbitration.
While Mr. Toussaint reiterated his opposition to binding arbitration, he did not rule it out. And while Governor Pataki vowed that there would be no negotiations as long as workers were striking, Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the authority, was in the Grand Hyatt hotel Wednesday night, suggesting he was still willing to meet with Mr. Toussaint. Though he issued a statement highly critical of Mr. Toussaint's words, it included language hinting the authority still wanted to talk.
Mayor Bloomberg recited a litany of misery brought on by the strike: business was down 40 percent in some restaurants and 60 percent in some stores; home health aides were unable to reach their patients; people were delaying chemotherapy and radiation; the New York Blood Center declared a state of emergency; attendance at museums and theaters was down; the holiday crowds on Fifth Avenue had thinned. After the first day of chaos, there were signs that systems were being fine-tuned and people were adapting.
Some suburban trains took to skipping stops to get into Manhattan faster. Police checkpoints ran more smoothly. Still, the evening rush was as chaotic as Tuesday night's, with long lines almost everywhere. More cars entered Manhattan. About 36,000 cars entered between 5 and 10 a.m., up 18 percent over Tuesday, said Kay Sarlin, a spokeswoman for the City Department of Transportation.
The Staten Island ferry had more passengers than usual; commuters thronged ferry terminals at the Brooklyn Army Terminal and at Hunters Point in Long Island City. The city reopened Fifth and Madison Avenues, which had been closed to all but emergency vehicles on the first day. There were scattered reports of price gouging by taxi and livery car drivers, the mayor said. The burden of the strike fell unevenly upon New Yorkers of different classes. For many living in Manhattan, the strike remained an inconvenience, not a hardship.
Some, like Dave Halman, a 35- year-old Wall Street banker, worked from home the first day. On Wednesday, he was out on West 96th Street waiting for a company shuttle. "It's fine," he said. "We went through the blackout, 9/11 and now most people are taking this in stride." But for many more, the impact was harsher.
Stan Decker said he had walked nearly seven miles from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to Jamaica, Queens. "They're hurting the ordinary people, they're not hurting the big shots," Mr. Decker, 59, said of the union. A union member himself, he complained, "Everybody's paying for health insurance. Why should they be different? When they overdo it like this, they hurt unions because if gives people a bad impression."
In its television advertisement, broadcast on the local cable channel NY1 News, the president of New York City Transit, Lawrence G. Reuter, said that "many hundreds of employees have already reported to work and we commend them." He urged employees to report to designated locations, listed on the agency's Web site, to avoid "severe legal and financial consequences."
On picket lines outside a bus depot in Midtown Manhattan and outside a transit plant, on West 53rd Street, some striking workers hinted they were having second thoughts. They said they live paycheck to paycheck, burdened with mortgages, many with children and ailing relatives to care for. Some said they had begun to wonder if they would be the ones to lose the most. Mayor Bloomberg, too, raised the question of whom the strike is hurting. "Roger Toussaint and the board have sought to portray the strike as a fight for working people," he said at a news conference.
"That argument doesn't hold any water. Working people are the ones that are being hurt. Busboys are getting hurt, garment industry workers are getting hurt, owners of mom-and-pop businesses are being hurt." The transit strike, the first in a quarter century, began at 3 a.m. Tuesday after negotiations between the union and the transit authority broke down over the authority's last-minute demand that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions - up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.
The authority has said it needs to rein in its soaring pension costs. Mr. Toussaint has argued that, under state law, it is illegal for the authority to insist on including a pension demand as part of a settlement. At a news conference, Mr. Pataki said: "There aren't going to be any talks while you're out there walking. Come back to work. And then the M.T.A., I'm sure, will be willing to engage in negotiations. But not while you're engaged in an illegal strike."
Asked about the union's demand that pensions be taken off the table, the governor said, "I don't care what the union says, until they come back to work." The governor's staff would not elaborate on his words, nor say whether they represented a change in the state's stance. Mr. Kalikow, who was appointed by the governor, said in his statement that the authority was ready to negotiate, but warned ominously that time was running out.
"The M.T.A. has remained in the hotel since the strike commenced, ready to negotiate," Mr. Kalikow said. He added: "It is becoming clear that we are rapidly approaching the point at which further waiting would be futile." Justice Jones ordered the union leaders to appear in court to face contempt charges and possibly jail. He also agreed to consider a request by the city for a temporary restraining order, which could lead to strikers being assessed additional fines.
Justice Jones brought up the possibility of jail for top union officials during proceedings in which James B. Henly, the lead state lawyer in the case, was seeking fines against Mr. Toussaint and two other officials of Local 100 - Ed Watt, the secretary-treasurer and Darlyne A. Lawson, the recording secretary. The union's lawyer, Arthur Z. Schwartz, argued that the judge could not rule on the state's request for fines against the three officials because they were in mediation, and not present in court.
Although he had not been asked by the state, the authority or the city to jail any union officials, Justice Jones said "one or more of these people could possibly be sent to jail" and agreed that they needed to be present. Mr. Toussaint, at his news conference, reiterated the union's argument that the authority had forced the union to strike by illegally insisting on pension changes. Under the state's Taylor Law, one side cannot make pensions a condition of a settlement. But in 1994 and in 1999, both sides agreed on pension changes. "We are prepared to resume negotiations, right away, right this minute," he said.
"If the pension issue were taken off the table, that would form the basis for us to ask our members - to ask our executive board - to ask our members to go back to work." Reporting for this article was contributed by Michael Cooper, Janon Fisher, Thomas J. Lueck, Jesse McKinley, Colin Moynihan, Fernanda Santos, Shadi Rahimi and Timothy Williams.
December 22, 2005
The Subtext Race Bubbles to the Surface in Standoff
By DIANE CARDWELL
New York Times
The standoff between the Transport Workers Union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, tense and perilous, was already taking a harsh physical and economic toll on New Yorkers. But now, as representatives of a mostly nonwhite work force trade recriminations publicly with white leaders in government and at the transportation authority, the potentially volatile issue of race, with all its emotional consequences, is bubbling to the surface.
The examples are both blatant and subtle, some open to interpretation, some openly hostile. Regarding the latter sort, the union - representing workers who are largely minority - shut down a Web log where the public could comment on the strike after it became so clogged with messages comparing the workers to monkeys and calling them "you people." (Seventy percent of the employees of New York City Transit are black, Latino or Asian-American.) And what may have begun inadvertently, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City," took on a life of its own yesterday as minority leaders and union members attacked the mayor's conduct as objectionable, or worse.
"There has been some offensive and insulting language used," said Roger Toussaint, the union leader. "This is regrettable and it is certainly unbecoming for the mayor of the city of New York to be using this type of language." But others were more extreme in their response. Leroy Bright, 56, a black bus operator who is also a union organizer, saw racial coding in Mr. Bloomberg's choice of words.
"The word thug is usually attributed to people of color whenever something negative takes place," he said, adding that the language was "unnecessarily hostile." The Rev. Al Sharpton, who called an evening news conference to blast Mr. Bloomberg, said in an interview: "How did we become thugs? Because we strike over a pension?" "I do not think the language would have been used in a union that was not as heavily populated by people of color," he added. "And whether he intentionally did it or not, he offended a lot of people of color and he ought to address that, and come to the bargaining table."
Earlier in the day, the Rev. Herbert D. Daughtry, a Brooklyn pastor, joined elected officials at a City Hall news conference and compared Mr. Bloomberg to Eugene (Bull) Connor, the Alabama police chief who used police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protesters in the 1960's. Ed Skyler, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, dismissed those comments, saying, "It's despicable for anyone to inject race into this situation."
He noted that when police and fire union members were trailing the mayor during contract negotiations, Mr. Skyler had accused them of "acting like thugs," to little comment. But for all the accusations and counter-accusations, clues of a simmering racial tension have hovered over the contract negotiations between the union and the transit authority all along. Mr. Toussaint, for instance, continued yesterday to cast the strike as part of a broader movement for social justice and invoked the civil rights movement, as he often does in his calls to respect the dignity of his workers.
"Had Rosa Parks answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice, many of us who are driving buses today would instead be at the back of the bus," he said. Mr. Toussaint added that he was the one who pointed out that the authority did not honor the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The authority, in its offer on Monday night, agreed to create such a holiday, an action estimated to cost $9 million a year.
Indeed, the politics of the strike are in some ways embedded in the broader demographic changes in the city. Mr. Toussaint, who is originally from Trinidad, leads a union, now dominated by blacks, Latinos and Asian- Americans, whose members were once mostly of European descent. "Clearly race is a subtext of much of what has happened in city politics, in the ethnic succession within unions and city agencies," said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor at the Baruch School of Public Affairs, who said he saw nothing inherently racial in the use of the term thuggish.
Among members of the Transport Workers Union, however, there is a real and bitter sense that city leaders speak of them differently from members of other unions, like those of police officers and firefighters, whose memberships are whiter. For instance, George McAnanama, a semi-retired union leader and former transit worker said transit employees have received less praise for their contributions during city emergencies like the 2001 terror attack and the 2003 blackout.
"Whenever there's praise given out we're always the stepchild if we're mentioned at all," he said.
Now, that sense of injustice has more fully emerged among workers on strike and is being championed by elected officials from the City Council to Congress. Mr. Sharpton made the civil rights connection explicit, noting that when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers' strike, a strike also held to be illegal.
Sewell Chan and Mike McIntire contributed reporting for this article.
No Timetable Is Announced on Resumption of Service
By STEVE GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN
New York Times
After meeting with both sides through the night, state mediators have devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract dispute that would allow strikers to return to work later today, the chief mediator said. It is not clear when members of Transit Workers Union, Local 100, would return to work to get subways and buses running again.
The union's executive board must first accept the settlement framework, although mediators said the union's leaders had agreed to ask the executive board to approve the recommendations.
"In the best interests of the public, which both parties serve, we have suggested, and they have agreed, to resume negotiations while the T.W.U. takes steps toward returning its membership to work," Richard A. Curreri, the board's director of conciliation, said at a news conference this morning. "Over the last 48 hours we have met separately with both T.W.U. and the M.T.A.," he said.
"While these discussions have been fruitful, an agreement remains out of the parties' reach at this time. It is clear to us, however, that both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences." Details of a settlement could take at least a day or two longer to be finalized, although buses and subways would be running before that.
The agreement, said several people close to the negotiations, would give every side some of what it asked for. The people insisted on anonymity because of the sensitive stage of the negotiations.
The proposal would allow Gov. George E. Pataki to save face because the final negotiations would not take place until the strikers return to work, the people said, and it would apparently allow the union's president, Roger Toussaint, to save face because, they believe, the authority's pension demands - which are at the crux of the deadlock - have been significantly scaled back.
In light of the progress in negotiations, State Supreme Court Justice Theodore T. Jones delayed a hearing scheduled for this morning on possible fines and jail terms for union leaders under the Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees.
The hearing was rescheduled for 4 p.m. today.
In Albany, Governor Pataki hailed the progress, and credited the Taylor Law, which requires mediation once an impasse is declared. "I just am pleased the Taylor Law, that sets up this process, was in this case followed by both sides and moved things forward in a positive way," Mr. Pataki said in a televised news conference.
Mr. Curreri and two other mediators were appointed by the state's Public Employment Relations Board on Tuesday afternoon after the union declared a strike at 3 a.m. that day and the authority said the talks had reached an impasse. Mr. Curreri, the board's director of conciliation, met with lawyers for the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, that afternoon.
Mr. Curreri also invited two veteran mediators - Martin F. Scheinman, a longtime arbitrator who has negotiated many labor agreements, and Alan R. Viani, the former chief negotiator at D.C. 37, the city's largest municipal workers union - to join him. All three met with both sides for hours at a time on Wednesday and into the night. The authority's chairman, Peter S. Kalikow, and Mr. Toussaint both participated in the talks on Wednesday and early this morning, the people said.
Even if the union calls for strikers to return to work, it could be 18 hours before service is fully restored. Most of the 6,300 subway cars have been placed in underground tunnels or in train yards, one next to another. Supervisors have been running empty trains over the rails to keep the rails polished and prevent rust. The 4,600 buses have been stored and guarded at 18 depots.
Employees would have to return to their shifts, tracks and signals would have to be inspected, and subway cars and buses examined before the subways and buses could run. If all employees promptly returned at the start of their next shift, some subways could begin to run eight hours after managers and supervisors get word that the strikers are returning, officials said.
The news is an abrupt change from Wednesday's developments, when a war of rhetoric surrounding the strike entered a louder and more contentious phase, with Mr. Toussaint demanding that thorny pension issues be removed from the table before the strikers returned to work. But Governor Pataki joined Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in saying that the transit workers must end the strike before negotiations could resume, contradicting the M.T.A.'s earlier position that it would talk anytime.
The authority took the highly unusual step of running television advertisements urging individual workers to return to their jobs. Even so, there was evidence of a willingness to compromise, at least behind the scenes, as both sides met separately with state mediators - the first possible step toward taking the dispute to arbitration.
And late last night, members of the union's executive board were summoned to headquarters for an emergency meeting at 1 a.m. Then, a short time later, it was postponed indefinitely. For his part, Mr. Toussaint attacked the mayor and the governor for what he called the use of "insulting and offensive language," apparently referring to the mayor's characterization of the strike by the city's 33,700 subway and bus workers as "thuggish" and "selfish."
In a speech that belied the union's tenuous position - it is already being fined $1 million a day - Mr. Toussaint seemed to cast the conflict in a social-justice context. In describing the struggle of his largely minority union, he invoked the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks, saying: "There is a higher calling than the law. That is justice and equality."
Despite Mr. Toussaint's vow not to return to the table until the pension demand was dropped, he and his top lawyers were meeting with state mediators for hours at a time. State mediation could have either led to a solution to the differences, or forced the two sides to binding arbitration.
While Mr. Toussaint reiterated his opposition to binding arbitration, he did not rule it out. And while Governor Pataki vowed that there would be no negotiations as long as workers were striking, Peter S. Kalikow, the chairman of the authority, was in the Grand Hyatt hotel Wednesday night, suggesting he was still willing to meet with Mr. Toussaint. Though he issued a statement highly critical of Mr. Toussaint's words, it included language hinting the authority still wanted to talk.
Mayor Bloomberg recited a litany of misery brought on by the strike: business was down 40 percent in some restaurants and 60 percent in some stores; home health aides were unable to reach their patients; people were delaying chemotherapy and radiation; the New York Blood Center declared a state of emergency; attendance at museums and theaters was down; the holiday crowds on Fifth Avenue had thinned. After the first day of chaos, there were signs that systems were being fine-tuned and people were adapting.
Some suburban trains took to skipping stops to get into Manhattan faster. Police checkpoints ran more smoothly. Still, the evening rush was as chaotic as Tuesday night's, with long lines almost everywhere. More cars entered Manhattan. About 36,000 cars entered between 5 and 10 a.m., up 18 percent over Tuesday, said Kay Sarlin, a spokeswoman for the City Department of Transportation.
The Staten Island ferry had more passengers than usual; commuters thronged ferry terminals at the Brooklyn Army Terminal and at Hunters Point in Long Island City. The city reopened Fifth and Madison Avenues, which had been closed to all but emergency vehicles on the first day. There were scattered reports of price gouging by taxi and livery car drivers, the mayor said. The burden of the strike fell unevenly upon New Yorkers of different classes. For many living in Manhattan, the strike remained an inconvenience, not a hardship.
Some, like Dave Halman, a 35- year-old Wall Street banker, worked from home the first day. On Wednesday, he was out on West 96th Street waiting for a company shuttle. "It's fine," he said. "We went through the blackout, 9/11 and now most people are taking this in stride." But for many more, the impact was harsher.
Stan Decker said he had walked nearly seven miles from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn to Jamaica, Queens. "They're hurting the ordinary people, they're not hurting the big shots," Mr. Decker, 59, said of the union. A union member himself, he complained, "Everybody's paying for health insurance. Why should they be different? When they overdo it like this, they hurt unions because if gives people a bad impression."
In its television advertisement, broadcast on the local cable channel NY1 News, the president of New York City Transit, Lawrence G. Reuter, said that "many hundreds of employees have already reported to work and we commend them." He urged employees to report to designated locations, listed on the agency's Web site, to avoid "severe legal and financial consequences."
On picket lines outside a bus depot in Midtown Manhattan and outside a transit plant, on West 53rd Street, some striking workers hinted they were having second thoughts. They said they live paycheck to paycheck, burdened with mortgages, many with children and ailing relatives to care for. Some said they had begun to wonder if they would be the ones to lose the most. Mayor Bloomberg, too, raised the question of whom the strike is hurting. "Roger Toussaint and the board have sought to portray the strike as a fight for working people," he said at a news conference.
"That argument doesn't hold any water. Working people are the ones that are being hurt. Busboys are getting hurt, garment industry workers are getting hurt, owners of mom-and-pop businesses are being hurt." The transit strike, the first in a quarter century, began at 3 a.m. Tuesday after negotiations between the union and the transit authority broke down over the authority's last-minute demand that all new transit workers contribute 6 percent of their wages toward their pensions - up from the 2 percent that current workers pay.
The authority has said it needs to rein in its soaring pension costs. Mr. Toussaint has argued that, under state law, it is illegal for the authority to insist on including a pension demand as part of a settlement. At a news conference, Mr. Pataki said: "There aren't going to be any talks while you're out there walking. Come back to work. And then the M.T.A., I'm sure, will be willing to engage in negotiations. But not while you're engaged in an illegal strike."
Asked about the union's demand that pensions be taken off the table, the governor said, "I don't care what the union says, until they come back to work." The governor's staff would not elaborate on his words, nor say whether they represented a change in the state's stance. Mr. Kalikow, who was appointed by the governor, said in his statement that the authority was ready to negotiate, but warned ominously that time was running out.
"The M.T.A. has remained in the hotel since the strike commenced, ready to negotiate," Mr. Kalikow said. He added: "It is becoming clear that we are rapidly approaching the point at which further waiting would be futile." Justice Jones ordered the union leaders to appear in court to face contempt charges and possibly jail. He also agreed to consider a request by the city for a temporary restraining order, which could lead to strikers being assessed additional fines.
Justice Jones brought up the possibility of jail for top union officials during proceedings in which James B. Henly, the lead state lawyer in the case, was seeking fines against Mr. Toussaint and two other officials of Local 100 - Ed Watt, the secretary-treasurer and Darlyne A. Lawson, the recording secretary. The union's lawyer, Arthur Z. Schwartz, argued that the judge could not rule on the state's request for fines against the three officials because they were in mediation, and not present in court.
Although he had not been asked by the state, the authority or the city to jail any union officials, Justice Jones said "one or more of these people could possibly be sent to jail" and agreed that they needed to be present. Mr. Toussaint, at his news conference, reiterated the union's argument that the authority had forced the union to strike by illegally insisting on pension changes. Under the state's Taylor Law, one side cannot make pensions a condition of a settlement. But in 1994 and in 1999, both sides agreed on pension changes. "We are prepared to resume negotiations, right away, right this minute," he said.
"If the pension issue were taken off the table, that would form the basis for us to ask our members - to ask our executive board - to ask our members to go back to work." Reporting for this article was contributed by Michael Cooper, Janon Fisher, Thomas J. Lueck, Jesse McKinley, Colin Moynihan, Fernanda Santos, Shadi Rahimi and Timothy Williams.
December 22, 2005
The Subtext Race Bubbles to the Surface in Standoff
By DIANE CARDWELL
New York Times
The standoff between the Transport Workers Union and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, tense and perilous, was already taking a harsh physical and economic toll on New Yorkers. But now, as representatives of a mostly nonwhite work force trade recriminations publicly with white leaders in government and at the transportation authority, the potentially volatile issue of race, with all its emotional consequences, is bubbling to the surface.
The examples are both blatant and subtle, some open to interpretation, some openly hostile. Regarding the latter sort, the union - representing workers who are largely minority - shut down a Web log where the public could comment on the strike after it became so clogged with messages comparing the workers to monkeys and calling them "you people." (Seventy percent of the employees of New York City Transit are black, Latino or Asian-American.) And what may have begun inadvertently, when Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said on Tuesday that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City," took on a life of its own yesterday as minority leaders and union members attacked the mayor's conduct as objectionable, or worse.
"There has been some offensive and insulting language used," said Roger Toussaint, the union leader. "This is regrettable and it is certainly unbecoming for the mayor of the city of New York to be using this type of language." But others were more extreme in their response. Leroy Bright, 56, a black bus operator who is also a union organizer, saw racial coding in Mr. Bloomberg's choice of words.
"The word thug is usually attributed to people of color whenever something negative takes place," he said, adding that the language was "unnecessarily hostile." The Rev. Al Sharpton, who called an evening news conference to blast Mr. Bloomberg, said in an interview: "How did we become thugs? Because we strike over a pension?" "I do not think the language would have been used in a union that was not as heavily populated by people of color," he added. "And whether he intentionally did it or not, he offended a lot of people of color and he ought to address that, and come to the bargaining table."
Earlier in the day, the Rev. Herbert D. Daughtry, a Brooklyn pastor, joined elected officials at a City Hall news conference and compared Mr. Bloomberg to Eugene (Bull) Connor, the Alabama police chief who used police dogs and fire hoses on civil rights protesters in the 1960's. Ed Skyler, a spokesman for Mr. Bloomberg, dismissed those comments, saying, "It's despicable for anyone to inject race into this situation."
He noted that when police and fire union members were trailing the mayor during contract negotiations, Mr. Skyler had accused them of "acting like thugs," to little comment. But for all the accusations and counter-accusations, clues of a simmering racial tension have hovered over the contract negotiations between the union and the transit authority all along. Mr. Toussaint, for instance, continued yesterday to cast the strike as part of a broader movement for social justice and invoked the civil rights movement, as he often does in his calls to respect the dignity of his workers.
"Had Rosa Parks answered the call of the law instead of the higher call of justice, many of us who are driving buses today would instead be at the back of the bus," he said. Mr. Toussaint added that he was the one who pointed out that the authority did not honor the birthday of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The authority, in its offer on Monday night, agreed to create such a holiday, an action estimated to cost $9 million a year.
Indeed, the politics of the strike are in some ways embedded in the broader demographic changes in the city. Mr. Toussaint, who is originally from Trinidad, leads a union, now dominated by blacks, Latinos and Asian- Americans, whose members were once mostly of European descent. "Clearly race is a subtext of much of what has happened in city politics, in the ethnic succession within unions and city agencies," said Douglas A. Muzzio, a professor at the Baruch School of Public Affairs, who said he saw nothing inherently racial in the use of the term thuggish.
Among members of the Transport Workers Union, however, there is a real and bitter sense that city leaders speak of them differently from members of other unions, like those of police officers and firefighters, whose memberships are whiter. For instance, George McAnanama, a semi-retired union leader and former transit worker said transit employees have received less praise for their contributions during city emergencies like the 2001 terror attack and the 2003 blackout.
"Whenever there's praise given out we're always the stepchild if we're mentioned at all," he said.
Now, that sense of injustice has more fully emerged among workers on strike and is being championed by elected officials from the City Council to Congress. Mr. Sharpton made the civil rights connection explicit, noting that when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968, he was in Memphis to support a sanitation workers' strike, a strike also held to be illegal.
Sewell Chan and Mike McIntire contributed reporting for this article.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
NYC Transit Strike May Inspire Workers Nationwide
New York City transit workers have paralyzed the nation's largest metropolitan area in a 34,000 union member walkout. Although they have been condemned by the Bloomberg administration, Gov. Pataki and the capitalist elites who are only thinking of their desire for holiday shopping profits, the majority of working people in the city have expressed support for the work stoppage. This labor action may inspire other unions across the nation to put a halt to the constant threat of cutbacks in salaries, health care coverage and pension benefits.
TWU Statement on Strike--Left Responses to the Transit Workers Walkout
http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/8307/
NYC transit workers forced to strike!
Press statement from TWU President Roger Toussaint
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/20/05 15:20
NEW YORK CITY - With a one billion dollar surplus, the contract between the MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100 should have been a no brainier. Sadly that has not been the case. Our contract expired midnight on Dec. 15.
In an attempt to save Mass Transit and in deference to our riders, we postponed our deadline and attempted to continue talking to the MTA. From the beginning, the MTA approached these negotiations in bad faith, demanding arbitration before even trying to resolve the contract.
Hours before contract expiration, the MTA got rid of its one billion dollar surplus -- a surplus which we believe continues to be understated by some one hundred million dollars. The MTA knew that reducing health and pension standards at the authority would be unacceptable to our union. They knew there was no good economic reason for their hard line on this issue - not with a billion dollar surplus.
They went ahead anyway, supported by the Bloomberg administration which wants to overrun Municipal Labor Unions and all City workers with down pressed wages and gutted health benefits and pension plans. This has been combined with continued attempts by the MTA, joined by the Governor and the Mayor, to intimidate and threaten our members and their families.
This is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement -- over the erosion or eventual elimination of health benefit coverage for working people. And it is a fight over dignity and respect on the job. A concept that is very alien to the MTA. Transit workers are tired at being under appreciated and disrespected. The Local 100 Executive Board has voted overwhelmingly to extend strike action to all MTA properties effective immediately.
All Local 100 representatives and shop stewards are directed to report to their assigned strike locations picket lines or facility nearest you immediately. To our riders, we ask for your understanding forbearance. We stood with you to keep token booths open, to keep conductors on the train and oppose fare hikes. We now ask that you stand with us. We did not want a strike.
Evidently the MTA, governor and the Mayor did. We call on all good will New Yorkers, the
Labor Community, and all working people to recognize that our fight is their fight, and to rally in our support with solidarity activities and events. And to show the MTA that TWU does not stand alone. -
Roger Toussaint, President, TWU Local 100
http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/8308/
Transit workers show determination, high morale
Dan Margolis
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/21/05 11:09
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — All 34,000 New York City’s bus and subway workers, represented by Transport Workers Union Local 100, walked off the job in the early morning hours of Dec. 20, beginning NYC’s first transit strike in 25 years. According to TWU workers picketing in the cold at the Coney Island subway terminal, they were there for themselves, for future transit workers and for all working-class families.
At 3 p.m., exactly 12 hours after Local 100 leadership called the strike, nearly a hundred workers picketed the Coney Island terminal. According to Edwin Kippins, a motorman for the B and Q lines, over 60 pickets — some of them much larger — were going on at train and bus yards and terminals all over the city’s five boroughs.
Hazel Daley, the picket captain, said that she was proud to be out, and that she felt there was “very good morale” from the workers and the public alike. “We haven’t seen too many people walking by — Coney Island is sort of isolated when the trains and buses aren’t running — but people driving by are showing more support than we expected.” As if to emphasize her point, a line of cars went by moments later, all honking their horns, some with drivers giving the “thumbs up” sign.
“Other drivers asked to take some of our [picket] signs, so that they could display them in their car,” Daley said. No one wants to strike, but everyone interviewed felt it was necessary. The transit workers said that they needed to stand up to the transit authority, which, they say, treats them with contempt.
Although it is running a $1 billion surplus, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that controls the trains and buses, demanded a two-tier pension system, where new workers would pay more toward their pension than current workers for their first 10 years of service.
It also wants new workers to pay more for health care benefits. “It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy that [the MTA] is pulling,” Daryl Ramsey, motorman on the Q and D trains told the World. “How can you have a worker paying 6 percent of his salary to his pension, while another worker, hired only two months before, is paying only 2 percent? That’s going to be divisive.” Ramsey also said that such a disparity is simply unjust.
Another picketer named Sterling held up the back of his digital camera for this reporter to view. “Look at that,” he said, pointing to an image that showed a filthy, overflowing toilet. “That’s the toilet we’re supposed to use at the 145th street station [on the B line] in Manhattan.” Pointing out another picture, which showed a room with a filthy layer of slime on the ground, the worker explained that it was their lunch area at the same station.
The slime on the ground, he explained, was raw sewage that came out of the toilet in the previous picture, when it backed up. Kippins said this strike, if successful, would benefit all workers. “They are slowly chipping away at the benefits of everyone, especially public employees,” he said. “The fire department, the police department — if we lose, they’re the next to get hit, and they know that.”
Daley said that she sensed a lot of support from other sections of labor. This support was on view the night before, at a rally of thousands of people to support the TWU. At the rally, leaders of public and private unions, including the City University professors, the building trades, Unite Here, the Screen Actors Guild, the Teachers Union and others all came out to pledge support in the event of a strike.
Daley pointed to a group of police officers who were there and said that they had been very friendly and supportive. Their union, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, supports the TWU. One of the officers, when questioned, said that he was on duty, and was not allowed to say he supported the strike.
The workers are under fierce assault. The mayor, the governor, and many others are demanding that the Taylor Law be enforced. This law fines public workers two days pay for every day on strike. “There are some things higher than the law,” TWU President Roger Toussaint told the previous night’s demonstration. “One of those things is justice. If Rosa Parks had obeyed the law, many of us who drive the buses would have to sit in back of them.”
One of the Coney Island workers said that he was willing to pay the fines, if “push came to shove.” “It’s worth it,” he said. “I’ve been working for the MTA for eight years. I have decades to go. It’s worth it. We have to draw the line.”
dmargolis@pww.org
Justice for NYC transit workers
They are fighting the rich and powerful to get a decent contract
Workers World Party Statement on TWU Strike
Published Dec 19, 2005 11:12 PM
Who keeps our subways and buses running? Not the high-paid executives of the MTA. Not the bankers who milk our transit system through huge interest payments. No matter how early you go to work, you’ll find subway and bus drivers, conductors, token booth workers, cleanup and track personnel already on the job. These women and men work hard, around the clock, often in hazardous conditions and in all weather.
The MTA wants to cut out conductors and make "one-person" trains, endangering the safety of workers and the public. It wants to cut benefits for new hires. It is offering wages that lag behind inflation. The workers have said, enough is enough! They face jail and fines if they strike for a decent contract. They're ready to fight and have the power to shut the city down. It's a power they haven’t used in a long time.
But the MTA may force them to do that or give up wages and health coverage and pensions that every worker deserves. MTA has the money No one wants to be inconvenienced. But think of it—this struggle will affect the workers of this city for years to come. Big business has been cutting away at wages and benefits, crying poverty. Poverty? Yes, there’s poverty all right, but not in the executive suites, not on Wall Street, not in the country club crowd. Their earnings are out of sight. And the MTA admits to having a $1-billion surplus!
But millions of workers can’t afford a doctor or medicine, can’t send their kids to college, can’t find decent, affordable housing, and are thousands of dollars in debt to credit card companies and banks. Most of them have no unions. The transit workers have a union—Local 100 of the TWU. It has a proud history of fighting the rich and powerful.
The MTA says it won’t touch “one cent” of existing workers’ health care and pensions. But it wants to cut those benefits for all the new hires. The TWU members, voting democratically in mass rallies of thousands, have said NO. Fighting for our future The big bosses don’t care what kind of a world our children live in. They’re trying to impose a “two-tier” contract—lower pay and benefits for future employees.
But the transit union is taking a stand for our sons and daughters. Let them know you agree! Get involved in supporting these workers. They help you every day. Now they need your help so we all can have a better life.
Issued as a public service by:
Workers World Party 55 West 17th St., 5th floor
New York, NY 10011
Phone: (212) 255-0352
Email: wwp@workers.org
Web: http://www.workers.org
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Page printed from: http://www.workers.org/2005/us/justice-1229/
http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/8307/
NYC transit workers forced to strike!
Press statement from TWU President Roger Toussaint
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/20/05 15:20
NEW YORK CITY - With a one billion dollar surplus, the contract between the MTA and Transport Workers Union Local 100 should have been a no brainier. Sadly that has not been the case. Our contract expired midnight on Dec. 15.
In an attempt to save Mass Transit and in deference to our riders, we postponed our deadline and attempted to continue talking to the MTA. From the beginning, the MTA approached these negotiations in bad faith, demanding arbitration before even trying to resolve the contract.
Hours before contract expiration, the MTA got rid of its one billion dollar surplus -- a surplus which we believe continues to be understated by some one hundred million dollars. The MTA knew that reducing health and pension standards at the authority would be unacceptable to our union. They knew there was no good economic reason for their hard line on this issue - not with a billion dollar surplus.
They went ahead anyway, supported by the Bloomberg administration which wants to overrun Municipal Labor Unions and all City workers with down pressed wages and gutted health benefits and pension plans. This has been combined with continued attempts by the MTA, joined by the Governor and the Mayor, to intimidate and threaten our members and their families.
This is a fight over whether hard work will be rewarded with a decent retirement -- over the erosion or eventual elimination of health benefit coverage for working people. And it is a fight over dignity and respect on the job. A concept that is very alien to the MTA. Transit workers are tired at being under appreciated and disrespected. The Local 100 Executive Board has voted overwhelmingly to extend strike action to all MTA properties effective immediately.
All Local 100 representatives and shop stewards are directed to report to their assigned strike locations picket lines or facility nearest you immediately. To our riders, we ask for your understanding forbearance. We stood with you to keep token booths open, to keep conductors on the train and oppose fare hikes. We now ask that you stand with us. We did not want a strike.
Evidently the MTA, governor and the Mayor did. We call on all good will New Yorkers, the
Labor Community, and all working people to recognize that our fight is their fight, and to rally in our support with solidarity activities and events. And to show the MTA that TWU does not stand alone. -
Roger Toussaint, President, TWU Local 100
http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/8308/
Transit workers show determination, high morale
Dan Margolis
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 12/21/05 11:09
BROOKLYN, N.Y. — All 34,000 New York City’s bus and subway workers, represented by Transport Workers Union Local 100, walked off the job in the early morning hours of Dec. 20, beginning NYC’s first transit strike in 25 years. According to TWU workers picketing in the cold at the Coney Island subway terminal, they were there for themselves, for future transit workers and for all working-class families.
At 3 p.m., exactly 12 hours after Local 100 leadership called the strike, nearly a hundred workers picketed the Coney Island terminal. According to Edwin Kippins, a motorman for the B and Q lines, over 60 pickets — some of them much larger — were going on at train and bus yards and terminals all over the city’s five boroughs.
Hazel Daley, the picket captain, said that she was proud to be out, and that she felt there was “very good morale” from the workers and the public alike. “We haven’t seen too many people walking by — Coney Island is sort of isolated when the trains and buses aren’t running — but people driving by are showing more support than we expected.” As if to emphasize her point, a line of cars went by moments later, all honking their horns, some with drivers giving the “thumbs up” sign.
“Other drivers asked to take some of our [picket] signs, so that they could display them in their car,” Daley said. No one wants to strike, but everyone interviewed felt it was necessary. The transit workers said that they needed to stand up to the transit authority, which, they say, treats them with contempt.
Although it is running a $1 billion surplus, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the agency that controls the trains and buses, demanded a two-tier pension system, where new workers would pay more toward their pension than current workers for their first 10 years of service.
It also wants new workers to pay more for health care benefits. “It’s a divide-and-conquer strategy that [the MTA] is pulling,” Daryl Ramsey, motorman on the Q and D trains told the World. “How can you have a worker paying 6 percent of his salary to his pension, while another worker, hired only two months before, is paying only 2 percent? That’s going to be divisive.” Ramsey also said that such a disparity is simply unjust.
Another picketer named Sterling held up the back of his digital camera for this reporter to view. “Look at that,” he said, pointing to an image that showed a filthy, overflowing toilet. “That’s the toilet we’re supposed to use at the 145th street station [on the B line] in Manhattan.” Pointing out another picture, which showed a room with a filthy layer of slime on the ground, the worker explained that it was their lunch area at the same station.
The slime on the ground, he explained, was raw sewage that came out of the toilet in the previous picture, when it backed up. Kippins said this strike, if successful, would benefit all workers. “They are slowly chipping away at the benefits of everyone, especially public employees,” he said. “The fire department, the police department — if we lose, they’re the next to get hit, and they know that.”
Daley said that she sensed a lot of support from other sections of labor. This support was on view the night before, at a rally of thousands of people to support the TWU. At the rally, leaders of public and private unions, including the City University professors, the building trades, Unite Here, the Screen Actors Guild, the Teachers Union and others all came out to pledge support in the event of a strike.
Daley pointed to a group of police officers who were there and said that they had been very friendly and supportive. Their union, the Patrolman’s Benevolent Association, supports the TWU. One of the officers, when questioned, said that he was on duty, and was not allowed to say he supported the strike.
The workers are under fierce assault. The mayor, the governor, and many others are demanding that the Taylor Law be enforced. This law fines public workers two days pay for every day on strike. “There are some things higher than the law,” TWU President Roger Toussaint told the previous night’s demonstration. “One of those things is justice. If Rosa Parks had obeyed the law, many of us who drive the buses would have to sit in back of them.”
One of the Coney Island workers said that he was willing to pay the fines, if “push came to shove.” “It’s worth it,” he said. “I’ve been working for the MTA for eight years. I have decades to go. It’s worth it. We have to draw the line.”
dmargolis@pww.org
Justice for NYC transit workers
They are fighting the rich and powerful to get a decent contract
Workers World Party Statement on TWU Strike
Published Dec 19, 2005 11:12 PM
Who keeps our subways and buses running? Not the high-paid executives of the MTA. Not the bankers who milk our transit system through huge interest payments. No matter how early you go to work, you’ll find subway and bus drivers, conductors, token booth workers, cleanup and track personnel already on the job. These women and men work hard, around the clock, often in hazardous conditions and in all weather.
The MTA wants to cut out conductors and make "one-person" trains, endangering the safety of workers and the public. It wants to cut benefits for new hires. It is offering wages that lag behind inflation. The workers have said, enough is enough! They face jail and fines if they strike for a decent contract. They're ready to fight and have the power to shut the city down. It's a power they haven’t used in a long time.
But the MTA may force them to do that or give up wages and health coverage and pensions that every worker deserves. MTA has the money No one wants to be inconvenienced. But think of it—this struggle will affect the workers of this city for years to come. Big business has been cutting away at wages and benefits, crying poverty. Poverty? Yes, there’s poverty all right, but not in the executive suites, not on Wall Street, not in the country club crowd. Their earnings are out of sight. And the MTA admits to having a $1-billion surplus!
But millions of workers can’t afford a doctor or medicine, can’t send their kids to college, can’t find decent, affordable housing, and are thousands of dollars in debt to credit card companies and banks. Most of them have no unions. The transit workers have a union—Local 100 of the TWU. It has a proud history of fighting the rich and powerful.
The MTA says it won’t touch “one cent” of existing workers’ health care and pensions. But it wants to cut those benefits for all the new hires. The TWU members, voting democratically in mass rallies of thousands, have said NO. Fighting for our future The big bosses don’t care what kind of a world our children live in. They’re trying to impose a “two-tier” contract—lower pay and benefits for future employees.
But the transit union is taking a stand for our sons and daughters. Let them know you agree! Get involved in supporting these workers. They help you every day. Now they need your help so we all can have a better life.
Issued as a public service by:
Workers World Party 55 West 17th St., 5th floor
New York, NY 10011
Phone: (212) 255-0352
Email: wwp@workers.org
Web: http://www.workers.org
This article is copyright under a Creative Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Page printed from: http://www.workers.org/2005/us/justice-1229/
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