Pandemic Bargaining: Resist Every Concession, Resist Every Layoff

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 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 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

U.S. members: VOTE by Tuesday, November 3

I know, for all of us, it has been an endless, exhausting, and stressful time since the pandemic began in early Spring. Tragically, over 30 more of our members have died from COVID-19 since the last In Transit, bringing the total to over 85 sisters and brothers lost. Countless more have been sickened – some seriously – some for life.

Fighting for you every day As infections and deaths rise, and states and provinces reopen, your Union continues to fight for you every day; fighting to force transit properties to require social distancing; insisting they provide personal protective equipment, and pressuring them to adopt all of our Safe Service demands (see atu.org).

Unsurprisingly, transit agencies are claiming that decreased tax revenue will force them to demand layoffs, and wage and benefit cuts. We are fighting this too, not only because it is wrong, but, because we know that many employers will try to make these cuts permanent.

Cutting transit funding and weakening unions are typical goals of Republicans in the U.S. and Conservatives in Canada. And you can be sure that if Donald Trump is re-elected, he and the GOP will do everything they can to achieve those goals.

Is this really the way we want to live? The United States is currently in the grip of multiple crises, but unlike previous crises such as 9/11, we’re not coming together as a nation. Rather the U.S. is so divided along political and ideological lines that the simple act of wearing a mask can spur outrage. Name-calling has replaced political discourse. All sense of civility is gone.

President Trump has exploited it, creating division and hate. He “stirs the pot” for political gain. And it’s not good for our country or the world.

Is this really the way we want to live?

Would we tolerate this from any other President? I do not doubt the sincerity of those who support the President. I only ask you to look at where we have arrived.

America is in deep trouble, and we have a President who runs away from responsibility and blames others for every problem. The “buck” never stops with Donald Trump.

Would we tolerate this behavior from any other President? We have got to take back our democracy before we lose it altogether.

Leadership We have to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

ATU endorsed Joe Biden for President in February, before the coronavirus became the threat that it is today. And we still do. Why?

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