Building workers rally on ruling class turf

Thousands of energized New York City unionized apartment building workers and their supporters marched April 13 from Central Park to ritzy Park Avenue to a rally on their contract demands. With negotiations with the industry association representing most owners, the Realty Advisory Board (RAB), going nowhere, the union representing the workers, Local 32BJ SEIU, called for the event to garner support for their cause and ready the workers for a possible strike.

In the four years since the last contract, prices have increased by over 11% while wages have gone up only 8.5%. Now, in the negotiations, the RAB is calling for reductions in both wages and benefits.

Leaders of 32BJ SEIU, including its president Mike Fishman, as well as leaders of several other unions, pointed out that the members work hard not only to take care of their buildings but also to help the residents who live in them by maintaining safe, healthy environments. Now it is time for the workers to get something in return, a fair contract.

The New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, and New York City Comptroller John Liu all spoke in support of the union, emphasizing that the many contributions the workers give to the quality of life in New York City and the importance of maintaining the ability of working people to continue to afford to live here require the need for a fair contract with increases in both wages and benefits. Later in the program, over one dozen members of the New York City Council appeared on the stage with the union leaders in a show of support.

The union represents 30,000 workers who provide services in 3,200 apartment buildings with over one million residents throughout New York City. Contract talks began on March 9. On April 1, union members authorized a strike if one is necessary. On Thursday, their bargaining team will go to round the clock negotiations with the RAB. The current contract expires at 12:01 am on April 21, and failure to agree to a new one by then could result in the workers walking picket lines. The union leaders emphasized that they and their members don't want to strike, but they will if they have to. And they will win.

By C. Edward Meyer

Texting 32BJ contract talks could read "we r on strk"

From the dawn of capitalism, working people have had to battle constantly for better wages, working conditions and quality of life. Usually the bosses own most of the communication tools to spin that battle in their favor.

But now, with the Internet and digital revolutions, workers have gained powerful new tools against their bosses. And one example comes from SEIU Local 32BJ, New York's building workers union, as they prepare for a potential strike. Some may call it Labor 2.0.

Union members are in a battle with the Realty Advisory Board to secure a fair contract. The Realty Advisory Board represents the private building owners. The cost of living in New York City has continued to rise, while workers' wages have been stagnant. But the RAB has balked at wage increases, as well as improved health and pension benefits.

On April 2, union members voted to give their negotiating committee the authority to call a strike-which would be the first since 1991-if an agreement isn't reached by April 20.

But this time-honored and tested tool of battle is being supplemented by modern technology. 32BJ members recently received an e-mail from their union's president, Mike Fishman, urging them to keep informed on late-breaking developments-by text message.

"As we head into the most critical days of bargaining," Fishman wrote, "make sure that we can contact you with urgent updates." The message went on to say that workers should text "32BJ" to 787753. After doing so, workers would begin to receive updates as they occur, directly on their phone.

Worker-to-worker contact is still important and texting can help. Fishman's note asked workers to "make sure everyone in your building is signed up for texts so you all have up-to-the minute information."

The slightly more traditional e-mail campaign is also in use. 32BJ, representing about 120,000 workers, including 30,000 in private city buildings, is asking its supporters to go to www.standwithbuildingworkers.org to sign a letter to the RAB demanding that the board negotiate in better faith.

By Dan Margolis
Photo via www.seiu32bj.org.

May Day reborn!

By Libero Della Piana

International Workers Day - was, of course, born in the U.S.A. But while the Haymarket events occurred in Chicago, the largest and perhaps best known May Day celebrations in the U.S. were historically in New York City. Unions, workers, their families and more traditionally marched together to honor working people.

This year, New York's historic May Day celebrations will be reborn with a mass march and rally organized by the labor and immigrant rights movements. An alliance of over 30 city and regional organizations is calling for "Labor and Immigrant Rights and Jobs for All." The demands are based on the AFL-CIO's five-point jobs program and immigrant rights demands.

A recent panel of labor leaders at the Left Forum discussed May Day historically and the plans for May Day 2010.

Ed Ott, former Executive Director of the New York City Central Labor Council spoke from the panel, saying, "this project will help rebuild the working-class left in the city." He noted that there are several protests on May 1, but argued, "this particular expression is the regrouping of some particular unions to reclaim a presence on May Day."

This emerging alliance is reclaiming May Day from years of neglect. McCarthyism, the decline of the left, and the identification of May Day with sectarian groups (true and not) had whittled New York ‘s May Day celebrations down to a small but spirited gathering by the dawn of the 21st Century.

Then in 2006, something happened.

Immigrant rights movements in the U.S. had for several years used the occasion of May Day to demonstrate for immigrant rights, but in that year millions of immigrant families poured out on May 1 around the U.S. calling urgently for immigrant rights, workers rights and amnesty. New York was no exception. May Day received a new breath of life.

This year perhaps begins a full recovery. Saturday, May 1, the march will assemble in Manhattan's Foley Square on Worth Street between Centre and Lafayette Streets. The March route will pass Wall Street, home to the country and world's largest banking and finance institutions, which many participants see as the source of the current economic and jobs crisis-and end in Battery Park.

Another panelist, Bhairavi Desai of the New York City Taxi Workers Alliance said, "It is really important to see organized labor and the immigrant rights movement come together with our economy in the state it's in." Taxi workers, domestic workers and many other immigrant workers are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act and face particularly difficult challenges at the workplace and elsewhere.

Some of the sponsors of the May day events include, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, District Council 37 AFSCME, Transport Workers Union Local 100, Domestic Workers United, United Brotherhood of Teamsters Local 210, New York City Labor Council for Latin American Advancement, Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (UFCW), Labor Left Project and many more.

In closing the panel presentation, Ed Ott spurred the audience into action, saying, "Every working-class activist should try to build this effort."

For more information or to volunteer, contact Jason Green with the Alliance for Labor & Immigrants Rights & Jobs for All at Jason@advancegroup.com or 212-239-7323

The real impediments to good schools

By Elena Mora

A recent article in the New York Daily News by Marcus Winters, from the Manhattan Institute (a right-wing, pro-corporate think tank), sums up in a sentence the "appeal" of charter schools: "Freedom from the often preposterous restrictions imposed by ... collective bargaining agreements allows charters to focus on student learning."

What are those preposterous restrictions contained in the teachers' contracts? Are they the impediments to student learning?

What's needed, according to Winters, is the ability to force teachers to work longer hours and perform whatever tasks the administration asks, and finally, to fire them. (Actually, he mentions the ability to fire teachers first.)

Though I'd like to reject this out of hand (especially in light of what just happened in Rhode Island with the wholesale firing of the teachers in Central Falls High), this notion has some currency.

Let's talk about teachers' hours. The teachers I know work evenings and weekends, preparing lessons and grading student work. With the increase in standardized testing and data collection, I'm sure that has gone up.

At my kids' recent parent teacher conferences, each teacher had pages of printed out data, with separate numerical scores for their homework, class work, tests and projects. I thought about how much time it must have taken them to do all those calculations for the 75 or so children they each teach. Frankly, I was amazed that in addition to the detailed scoring, they were able to also offer insight into my children's thinking, progress and behavior.

I don't doubt that most schools could use more staff, but the solution isn't more hours for existing teachers.

What about making it easier to fire teachers? There are surely bad teachers, just as there are surely bad principals and administrators. But just how many teachers deserve to be fired? New York City's Department of Education has a special team with a million dollar budget and a staff of eight lawyers and eight others whose job is to help principals build cases against teachers. According to The New York Times (which admits that these are unsubstantiated figures), the DOE claims that there are 500 teachers it would like to fire for incompetence - out of 55,000. That's less than 1 percent of the total.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of New York's United Federation of Teachers, said teachers have "no desire to have incompetent or misbehaving colleagues but also insist that the discipline process be fair and objective." Not one of the teachers at the Rhode Island high school had received a negative performance review, and the superintendent and school board made no allegation of incompetence on the part of any individual teacher - nevertheless all were fired.

So what is the answer to the problems in the public schools?

While teacher training, support and development are very important, the biggest problem, the 800-pound gorilla in the room, is the de-funding of public education that has gone on since the 1970s.

More resources are the key. New York's Alliance for Quality Education, which battled to change the state's funding formula that has severely shortchanged urban school districts, commissioned many studies on the impact of funding, and proved something that was probably obvious to parents in poor communities - money matters.

Another NYC advocacy group, Class Size Matters, has focused on the proven success of smaller class sizes on "increasing learning and narrowing the achievement gap." And by the way, because the teachers have class size caps in their contract, they have led the fight against the overcrowding that is still endemic in the city.

And even Diane Ravitch, one of the architects of "No Child Left Behind," no longer argues that "charters, merit pay and accountability" are key to improving schools. Rather, she has concluded that "charter schools are proving to be no better on average than regular schools, [and] in many cities are bleeding resources from the public system."

Blaming the teachers' unions for the "failure" of the public education system is at best a red herring, at worst a cynical way to divide the stakeholders in the schools, teachers from parents and the community. Though the problems are complex and systemic, the solutions are simpler: we need a major increase in funding for public education, all aspects of it, including teacher training and support.

The bottom line in the debate about public schools

When it comes to New York City's public schools, one thing is not in dispute: there are problems, a lot of them. The city's kids have below average math and reading scores, and very high drop out rates - of 50 large US cities, NY is close to the bottom, at 43rd.

And while there are disagreements about the reasons for these problems, the big dispute these days is about the solutions, and specifically, about the role of charter schools and their relationship to "traditional" public schools.

One skirmish took place recently, in the basement auditorium of the Ralph Bunche Trilingual School on West 123rd Street in Harlem. The room was almost full, as parents and community residents held a tense "town hall meeting" with school Chancellor Joel Klein.

Increasing the number of charter schools has been a major priority of Bloomberg and Klein's Department of Education. Plans are set for fall openings of 24 more, bringing the total to 123, and the mayor is pushing the state legislature to allow him to add another 100. Charter schools would then make up 22% of all schools in the district.

At the meeting, parents' questions focused on the area's charter school explosion (24 of 29 charter schools in Manhattan are located in Harlem). Many expressed anger and frustration with the DOE's policy of placing charter schools in existing school buildings, which most cities do not allow. Existing schools have been forced to cut space usage and programs or move to other less desirable locations.

Even parents who said that they don't oppose charter schools in principle, talked about the "separate and unequal" situation that is developing, the fomenting of divisions within communities, and the negative impact on the children in the regular schools when their learning and recreational space is usurped by a charter school, often without discussion or advance notice.

But some parents were there to support the charters -- the charter school "movement" has relied on the fact that many families are indeed desperate for better schools for their children, and the worst schools are mainly in working-class, especially Black and Latino, communities.

Klein claims that the DOE has only the children's interests at heart, and that charters give parents choices and advance school reform. The idea is that charter schools can do better with less, and can experiment with educational approaches, unfettered by the restrictions (read union rights) within the public school system.

But national research has shown that in fact, many charter schools are falling short, with one study finding that only 17 percent offered students a better education than public schools - and that 37 percent were actually worse.

New York City's charters have had better results, on the other hand. What is different?

One big part of the answer is that they do not, in fact, have "less" resources. Those charter schools that are housed in public school buildings (two-thirds of the total) receive approximately the same amount per pupil as public schools do. And charter schools have access to other resources: high powered (and highly paid) CEOS and governing boards, favored relationships with DOE officials and other connections with Wall Street and the corporate world, and NYC has a lot of that.

Parents are obviously motivated by their children's needs, but Bloomberg and Klein's motivation is another thing entirely.

The Chancellor said at the meeting that the DOE only wants the best for children in neighborhoods like Harlem. But in 2008, the DOE enacted budget cuts that disproportionately hurt the highest poverty schools, and cancelled out the positive effects of increased need-based funding from the state.*

In 2005 and 2006, Bloomberg successfully fought efforts that would have reduced class size, a proven way to enhance learning and reduce the achievement gap. His opposition was undoubtedly due to the proposal to fund this by continuing the city's tax surcharge on personal incomes over $500,000.

And just last month, the mayor's handpicked Panel on Educational Policy voted to close 19 schools despite overwhelming community opposition and expert testimony about available alternatives, including federal funds, for turning these troubled schools around.

The bottom line is that Bloomberg's dream of school reform is a corporate one: weakened union protections for staff and teachers, an expanded role - and profits - for the private sector, and as little public funding and regulation as can be gotten away with. That scenario cannot provide quality education for all children, which is what the growing movement is fighting for, and which like all the issues facing working people, will require unity and mobilization to win.

*"New York City's Contract for Excellent: Closing the Funding Gap or a Funding Shell Game" http://www.aqeny.org/action-information.php, report by the Alliance for Quality Education and the Fiscal Policy Institute found that the DOE cut more from the schools with the highest poverty rates.

Class war in NYC transit

In a pre-spring offensive against 38,000 transit workers and a riding public of millions, Jay Walder, chair of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city's subways, buses and commuter rail, has announced 1,000 layoffs. He vowed "an aggressive overhaul of MTA operations." Workers likely to be axed by Walder include 450 station agents. The MTA also targeted school children, who for generations have gotten subsidized transit bus passes.

Two days later, transit workers, teachers, riders, communities and their allies fired the first shot in the counteroffensive - on the issue of student Metrocards. Transport Workers Local 100 President John Samuelsen joined Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, in denouncing the government's "upside down" priorities - where Wall Street bankers are given bailouts that turn into bonuses and school children are told they can't have passes to ride to school.

Samuelsen declared, "Along with our jobs, student Metrocards are in the MTA's crosshairs. If the cards were discontinued, public education in New York City would cease to be free, devastating hundreds of thousands of families with extra costs of as much as $2,600 per year. Defending student Metrocards is part of our multi-pronged fight against cuts in mass transit."

Recession is not the only cause of the MTA deficit. No layer of New York State's government has acted responsibly on MTA finances. In 1994-1995 Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Pataki, obsessed with cutting taxes for the rich and services for working people, slashed subsidies to the MTA. To fill the gap, the MTA went to Wall Street and borrowed billions at high interest rates. The bills have come due. The MTA must allocate a huge part of its current operating revenue to service its debt. This puts pressure on other big components of the operating budget: service levels and workers' wages and benefits. Also, with a severe recession, the taxes that help finance the MTA - besides the farebox - are underperforming. Finally, the bailout of the MTA last spring by the state government - paid for by a modest payroll tax - has come partly unraveled. Legislators and finance officials in the outer counties of the MTA region are fighting the new payroll tax.

The way the MTA aims to solve the crisis deserves to be called class war, with winners and losers. The main winner is Wall Street, which gets billions from the swollen debt-service. Next, real estate and construction moguls who feed off a $5 billion a year MTA capital (construction and repair) budget. Losers? The workers won't get the wages and benefits they are legally and morally entitled to. Riders, mostly working people, will lose in service cuts and higher fares. The MTA financing system will grow more regressive. Already, it is one of the most farebox-dependent in the country.

The mass transit crisis is a national crisis. Transit labor is under siege in cities across the country. State and national governments need to be pushed. In New York State, some are calling for a greater tax on the rich, and an expansion of the Fair Share Tax reform that was passed about a year ago. Unfortunately, Gov. David Paterson is in favor of allowing the whole law to sunset.

Emergency funding for operating subsidies also has to come from the federal government. Leaders from the Amalgamated Transit Union, TWU, the International Association of Machinists and the Service Employees International Union are putting together a political strategy. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is already arguing for the more generous use of stimulus money and "jobs bill" money to keep transit systems afloat. The MTA, reflecting big banking, construction, real estate and engineering interests, will oppose any federal aid that doesn't go to those interests.

It's class war in transit. The skirmishing has begun.

By Thomas Kenny

CVS risking consumer, worker s' health for profits, laborers claim

Members of Laborers Local 78 are connecting poor treatment of consumers to poor working conditions for contractors, and are urging consumers to pressure CVS, the corporation responsible, to change its practices.

Local 78 members distributed leaflets outside of a CVS on Manhattan's Columbus Avenue, near Lincoln Center, explaining that the corporation has hired Panzner Brothers Demolition, a sub-standard non-union company, to remove asbestos from their buildings.

"When asbestos isn't properly removed," said one of the union activists, "the fibers go into the air. They're so small you can't see them, but, when inhaled, they can remain in someone's lungs forever."

According to a flier issued by Local 78, "Ultimately, asbestos fibers cause fatal diseases that currently have no cure."

The union activists charge that CVS has hired a non-union company to save money. While they are fighting this as an anti-union move, they are also concerned that this will ultimately endanger both people in the area and the unorganized workers themselves.

Local 78 members are connecting this lack of oversight to shocking abuses of consumers, including the sale of counterfeit drugs in Deer Park, N.Y., and a case in East Pointe, Georgia, where the company, known for understaffing its pharmacies, gave the wrong medication to a truck driver, resulting in post traumatic stress disorder.

The picketing unionists made clear that they are not asking for a boycott or a strike; the simply want members of the public to contact CVS and demand that responsible contractors be hired.

The suggest calling CEO Tom Ryan at 401-765-1500 and Bill Jacobs at 516-729-1018.

By Dan Margolis

Thousands demonstrate against NY State for fair budget, taxes

By Dan Margolis

NEW YORK—Tens of thousands of people—unionists, community members, religious leaders and elected officials—came out here, March 5, at City Hall and in cities across the state to demand a fair budget for working people, and that the rich pay their fair share in taxes.

New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson told the nearly 75,000 people gathered, “We must ensure that City Hall and Albany put forth proposals that take into account the needs of all New Yorkers. We cannot balance the budget on the backs of working people.”

New York State has a budget deficit of around $14 billion, and the City has a $4-5 billion hole to fill. While the state is poised to receive more than $24 billion in stimulus funds, the governor has argued that New York has a “spending problem” and that the funds will not cover future deficits. He has proposed regressive sales taxes and $2.5 billion in education and $3.5 billion in healthcare cuts, gradually ending aid to all cultural institutions, and huge cuts to libraries, among other things.

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for his part, has echoed the governor’s rhetoric, and proposed similar cuts at the city level. While Paterson has been pushed to retreat—due in large part to public outrage and actions such as the Rally for New York—Bloomberg won’t budge. He has proposed $127 million in cuts to the city’s medical institutions and nearly $1 billion in cuts to city schools. Bloomberg has also demanded another tier be added to the contracts of public workers.

United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten told the crowd in NYC, “As President Obama has said over and over, we cannot simply cut our way out of this economic crisis because that would be a recipe for disaster. That is why we pushed so hard for passage of the stimulus package.”

Weingarten is also president of the American Federation of Teachers, the national parent union of UFT.

In a show of solidarity, the rally demanded no cuts to anything: the Untied Federation of Teachers demanded no cuts to healthcare, while 1199 SEIU, which represents healthcare workers demanded no cuts to education, for example. Instead, everyone demanded Fair Share Tax Reform, in which the wealthiest New Yorkers would pay slightly more in taxes.

Currently, New York’s highest marginal tax rate is 6.85 percent, whether you make $40,000 or $40,000,000. The plan would add a few new brackets, and would raise $6 billion. However, Bloomberg, and others of his ilk, argue that the rich would not pay, and would simply move out—though New Jersey and California have similar tax brackets, and, as 1199 SEIU President George Gresham said, “there are a lot of rich people there.”

Gresham noted that “study after study” have shown that the rich do not move when their income tax is raised. Further, “this is New York,” he told the cheering crowd. “Where are they going to move? To Iowa?”

According to Thompson, “all New Yorkers must play a part in bringing New York back.”

A huge cross-section of the city’s unions were represented, including the teachers, SEIU Local 32 BJ, AFSCME, most AFL-CIO unions. Many community and civic groups, like Citizen Action, Make the Road New York, ACORN, the city's immigration coalition, tenants' organizations, and others, were also out in force.

NY Cabbies Strike Over GPS Tracking Scheme

By Libero Della Piana
NEW YORK — New York cabbies held a successful 24-hour strike here Oct. 22 in protest of the new global positioning system devices being mandated by the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). The strike, which comes just six weeks after a previous 48-hour strike on the same issue, was called by the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a member of the New York City Central Labor Council.

Subways were clogged during the morning commute and passengers at airport taxi lines stretched along the curb, as few cabs broke ranks with the strike. Mayor Michael Bloomberg initiated a contingency plan that included zone fares and multiple fares per taxi, amounting to a big bribe to scabbing cab drivers.

A noon rally outside of the lower Manhattan offices of the TLC drew over 1,000 cab drivers and their allies. Ed Ott, executive director of the Central Labor Council, spoke to the crowd, saying, “You represent a new era of the labor movement in this city. Your fight is our fight.”

Other speakers included Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, City Councilmember Robert Jackson, Rabbi Michael Feinberg of the Greater New York Labor-Religion Coalition, representatives of Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union and the Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York.

Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the taxi workers alliance, claimed the strike as a victory, stating that 75 percent of the 44,000 city cab drivers stayed off the road. “We have to believe in our unity, because in the long run, we will win,” she said.

Unity among the racially and nationally diverse taxi workforce is running high, according to union organizers. The mayor’s office and the TLC have tried sowing disunity through public statements, bribes and backing a puppet union led by Republican Party activist and multimillionaire Fernando Mateo.

Cabbie Billy Acquaire rallied the crowd by reminding drivers of the corruption and cronyism behind the GPS deal. “Everybody knows about the ‘GPS insider’s club,’” said Acquaire. “Ron Sherman, president of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, is also a GPS vendor.” Drivers in the crowd went wild when Acquaire challenged TLC Chairman Matthew Daus to come down from his office to explain the insider contract.

The Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade is the association of the large taxi garages that dominate the industry. Sherman also owns Midtown Garage. Sherman’s company Creative Mobile Technologies received the largest of the five contracts to put GPS into cabs. A number of TLC officials bagged jobs with Creative Mobile Technologies after the contracts were secured, including Jed Applebaum, who previously was assistant commissioner of safety and emissions.

Not only was the process corrupt, but cabdrivers also feel that the GPS equals a cut in pay for drivers and invades their privacy. A 5 percent service charge is deducted from every transaction, and drivers cannot earn fares when the machine doesn’t work.

Drivers plan to continue their fight through continued public pressure and a federal lawsuit, and by seeking solidarity from labor allies and passengers.

This article originally appeared in the People's Weekly World newspaper.

NYC Taxi Workers Prepare for Another Strike, Monday Oct 22

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA) has called another one-day strike of cab drivers in the city for Monday, Oct 22. The strike will begin at 5:00 am and run for 24 hours. The strike follows a successful two-day strike last month to protest a new policy mandating Global Positioning Systems (GPS) in cabs by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC). Drivers say GPS will further cut into their meager earnings and invade their privacy.

The new strike makes additional demands including health and pension benefits for taxi workers, and union recognition and the resignation. Even the editorial board of the New York Daily News now supports the cabbies' demands.

NYTWA is a member of the New York City Central Labor Council.

Passengers and other supporters can help in many ways:

1) Call 311, New York City's information and service line and voice your support for cab drivers and opposition to the GPS system.

2) Introduce resolutions in support for the strike in your union, church, community group, etc.

3) Attend the rally in support of cab drivers at 12:00 noon, Mon, Oct 22 at TLC headquarters, 40 Rector Street, Manhattan. Bring signs like, "New Yorkers Stand with its cab Drivers" and "Passengers Against GPS Tracking."

4) And don't hail any taxis on Monday! Show your solidarity by not crossing the picket line.

For more information and to get leaflets, volunteer, etc., visit the website of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance

Join us at the 2007 NYC Labor Day Demo: Saturday, September 8

Help us distribute copies of the People's Weekly World newspaper at New York City's Labor Day demonstration this Saturday, September 8. We will meet on the northwest corner of Church and Vessey Streets across from Ground Zero at 9:30am. You can also pick up copies to take to your union's contingent in the march.

At 10:00am, the New York City Central Labor Council, the New York State AFL-CIO and the NY Building and Construction Trades Council are sponsoring a rally adjacent to 7 World Trade Center.

According to the Central Labor Council, "This Labor Day, as we remember the contributions of working people, the heroes of 9/11, and those who so honorably protect our freedom and security here and abroad, we join together to support labor’s efforts to address the long-term health needs, ongoing medical monitoring, treatment and compensation for first responders and other workers suffering from the long-term effects of 9/11."

For more information and to download a flyer, visit:
New York City Central Labor Council

City Taxi Drivers Prepared to Strike Sept 5-6

There are few better symbols of New York City than the yellow cab. But there may be no taxis on city streets September 5 and 6.

That is, drivers are prepared to strike if the Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) continues to refuse to negotiate with taxi drivers about sweeping changes they are imposing on the city's 44,000 drivers. The TLC, backed by the Mayor, are mandating that all of the city's 13,000 yellow cabs be equipped with Global Positioning System (GPS) hardware.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a union with 10,000 member-drivers, held a press conference yesterday declaring that cab drivers are prepared to strike for 48 beginning at 5:00am Sept. 5 unless the TLC agrees to negotiate a fare settlement to their concerns about the system. The Taxi Workers Alliance in February became a member of the New York City Central labor Council, representing 400 unions in the city.

The GPS system will track all taxi trips and fares. The taxi meter will not operate unless the GPS works, meaning drivers cannot work if the system is inoperative. Plus, taxis will be tracked whether they are working or not since the GPS beeps incessantly if it is not engaged while driving. The system will effectively allow the TLC to monitor taxi patterns and fares in order to adjust fares and fees, but not likely to support drivers.

New York taxi drivers work long hours under difficult working conditions, often being stiffed for fares, facing safety issues and paying high lease rates to the TLC, medallion owners and garages. High gas costs also dig into cab drivers' earnings. Few drivers actually own medallions and depend on leasing medallions or renting cars from garages at rates upward of $100 per day.

Bhairavi Desai, Executive Director of the Taxi Worker Alliance said, "We do not understand why the TLC is mandating an unnecessary luxury technology on cabs." Costs for installing the GPS will be passed on to drivers, and 5% of every fare will go to the taxi garages as a processing fee. Not surprisingly, the contract to provide the GPS units to the city was awarded to Ron Sherman, head of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, the garage owners' association.

Drivers are concerned about privacy intrusion from the GPS system, as well as the financial impact. One driver at the press conference held a sign reading, "GPS tracks passengers too!" Plus, the GPS cannot actually be used the way many people use GPS in their own cars. There is no navigation feature that would make the GPS useful for lost drivers or for dispatching cabs.

"We have fundamental principal issues with GPS tracking," said Desai. "With the credit card, we have issues with how it is being implemented." Credit card payment and the video monitors do not require GPS to operate. Some taxis currently utilize credit card payments without GPS tracking.

Taxi workers are asking passengers to support them. They hope to avoid a strike by reaching a resolution with the TLC. One driver rallying at the press conference asked for passengers to "talk to the city, talk to the mayor, call the TLC and ask them to negotiate a resolution to this issue."

This would be the first strike by taxi drivers since their 24-hour work stoppage in 1998.

Delivering Justice in New York City

Saigon Grill workers explain their situation in front of restaurant. PWW photo by Ken BeSaw.

Immigrant labor makes New York City run. If you doubt it, order some food for delivery. All over the city (and increasingly around the country) immigrants are the backbone of the food service industry, working as chefs, line cooks, dish washers, bussers, and, of course, delivery workers.
In New York City those restaurant delivery workers often face low wages, unfair rules, and unsafe conditions. The dramatic case of the delivery staff at the Saigon Grill is case in point. Delivery workers there were locked out of their jobs months ago when they brought legal action against the restaurant's owner for illegally low wages and working conditions. Workers were being paid less than $2 and hour and being stiffed out of overtime pay in violation of State Labor Laws.

Organizations like Chinese Staff and Workers Association and the Asian American Legal Defense & Education Fund have rallied around the Saigon Grill workers and supported their nearly daily pickets of the restaurant. In May, 200 students disrupted meal service at the Restaurant's downtown restaurant in support of the workers. The boycott has recieved support from local elected officials such as Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Tom Duane, and City Councilmember Gale Brewer.

The boycott of the Saigon Grill is just the beginning. Legal action is being taken against a number of other city restaurants with deplorable policies towards restaurant workers.

If you are interested in joining the picket, check out the schedule.