Preparing For A Fight

As the court case on the contract arbitration award drags on, many workers are concerned about the lack of wage increases and the substantial increase in the cost of health insurance.

Workers’ anger is growing, but there is much confusion about what can be done. From management’s point of view, we are supposed to wait and see what the court decides. As workers, there is a different view. The no-strike clause was put in the contract when management (it was Capital Transit at the time) agreed to final and binding arbitration. Under the agreement, once an arbitrator was selected, his decision was subject to judicial review only if he had been bribed or his decision was based on false information. It could not be appealed because management or the union though it was too much or too little.

Metro and the court are now saying that the ground rules have changed. From the workers’ viewpoint this voids the contract and allows us to return to the time before there was a no-strike clause in the contract.

Many of us are skeptical of this approach. We look around us and see millions out of work. Other workers have had their wages cut or their hours of work reduced. Millions of others have no health insurance or pay an outrageous amount for minimal benefits. Pensions like ours have pretty much disappeared in the private sector and are now under attack for government workers. Is it wise to fight back under these circumstances?

We have no choice but to fight back. The bosses are not satisfied with the status quo. They believe with the current economic situation coupled with a weak and incompetent union leadership they can push us back. This racist attack is trying to reverse the gains of the Civil Rights Movement.

At this point the main obstacle to a serious fight is our union leadership. When the award was issued, the leadership confused the membership by telling them there were no concessions in the award and that it favored the union. After Metro challenged the award because it did not push us back far enough, the leadership took the position that the whole award had to be implemented or none of it. They soon backed down from this, an allowed Metro to give us the bonus instead of a wage increase for 2008. At the court hearing in March the union told the judge we were not going to challenge the increases in health insurance or the elimination of retiree health insurance for new employees.

After that hearing, the leadership said the judge only wanted the arbitration panel to clarify the award. She refused to admit that the judge had ruled that the award had to be in compliance with the Wolf Bill which was passed to reduce our wages and benefits. At the August court hearing, the judge told us once more that the award had to be incompliance with the Wolf Bill and that we had not shown that. He gave the union 45 more days to explain why we should get a pay raise and keep our pension benefits and at that point he would begin to study the materials and write an opinion. He set no date to issue his opinion. In most cases you would expect an opinion in 6 to 8 weeks.

We have to pressure the leadership to prepare us for a fight. If they will not, we have to provide that leadership ourselves. We need to gain the support of other unions and the riding public for this fight. For more info email at: movingforward689@yahoo.com.