New York, Oct. 30 — Ten thousand transit workers jammed Manhattan’s lower tip tonight to say “No!” to the Mass Transit Administration’s giveback demands. MTA chairman Pat Foye — also known as “Pat Fraud” — is demanding workers pay much more money for health insurance.
The 41,000 members of Transit Workers Union Local 100 move New York City. A trillion dollars worth of real estate would be worthless without their labor.
Yet the big business media has been running a hate campaign against TWU members, many of whom work in dangerous conditions underground in the subways and above the streets on elevated lines.
These capitalist mouthpieces scream about overtime pay but don’t point out that the MTA refuses to hire enough workers. TWU members are sick of these lies.
The union shared videos of TWU founder Mike Quill tearing up an anti-strike injunction and saying “the judge can drop dead in his black robes.” Quill also once demanded the transit fare be free.
Mike Quill was sent to jail for leading a twelve-day strike in 1966. He died in jail but the TWU won the strike. Forty years later then TWU Local 100 president Roger Toussaint was also jailed. Public workers in New York State are shackled by the Taylor law that make strikes illegal.
Local 100 President Tony Utano reminded workers that billionaire mayor Mike Bloomberg called transit workers “thugs” while mayor Ed Koch called the union members “whackos.” TWU international president John Samuelsen also spoke at the rally.
Like teachers in Chicago, transit workers in New York City are angry as hell and won’t take it anymore.
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