As predicted, transit agencies and private employers in the U.S. and Canada have used the COVID-19 pandemic as justification for layoffs and the wage and healthcare concessions they have tried for years to obtain. Employers are also betting that they can get away with busting unions by pitting workers against each other by race, classification, seniority, and more, when in fact all members refuse to accept poverty-level pay as a result of the coronavirus economic disaster. The International will continue to support the exceptional work of our locals to keep pressure on employers to meet our crucial Safe Service demands (see atu.org).
Our lives, our livelihoods Now, just as the International and Locals have taken an aggressive approach since the onset of COVID-19 to protect the lives of our members, we must fight with that same vigor and resistance to protect our livelihoods. International President John Costa has encouraged Locals to take a “resist every concession, resist every layoff,” approach to bargaining. Our goal, quite simply, is to stop layoffs and concessions in their tracks, to ensure that the costs of this pandemic and the resulting recession don’t fall to those least able to afford it.
to prepare our Locals – both big and small, urban and rural – for negotiations long before they begin. In others, it will help accelerate drawn-out negotiations with member action. We will not accept negotiating ploys that promise that contract give-backs will last only until the current crisis recedes – not when we know that managements find ways to make sure the “crisis” never ends.
We’ll fight like hell We will not allow governments to claim that they just can’t afford to pay living wages – not when the Trump administration can afford to dole out incredible largesse to the rich in the form of tax cuts and unneeded stimulus subsidies; not when Parliament takes care of so many other interest groups. We will not be made to bear the cost of the pandemic – not when our members are dying at three times the rate of the general population. In short, we’ve worked hard for many years for the wages and healthcare benefits we’ve earned, and we will fight like hell to keep them. v
To resist concessions – and even win new victories – we will rely on our tested Safe Service tactics and approach. That means deep one-on-one organizing and aggressive campaigns. In some cases, this will be a proactive drive
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July - August - September 2020 | IN TRANSIT
