Union action will be key for political, contract progress

ATU Local 1700 members deserve a big pat on the back for helping to elect Barack Obama. Even so, I don't expect the disgraced supporters of George Bush to give us any credit. With hours of Obama's inauguration, Big Business and the "Wing Nuts" that run the Republican party made it clear that they want the new president to fail. The 30-minute honeymoon is over.

We took a big step toward putting America back on track last November. Now we must defend and expand that victory every day. This is the fight of our lives. The Obama Administration needs our active support to succeed. Without union members exercising our organized strength in the streets, not even a Democratic White House and Congress can restore the middle class.

We won more progressive legislation under Richard Nixon than during the Clinton Administration because the labor movement was more powerful in the 1970s than the 1990s. Without union support, Obama will not be able to overcome the powerful special interests standing in the way of health care reform, a healthy environment, or ending senseless wars.

If our political momentum stalls, you can kiss the right to organize a union or to a decent retirement goodbye, along with putting an end to unpaid work time for bus drivers, adopting reasonable regulations for all of public transportation, and reforming FMCSA hours of service regulations.

We will face a similar challenge in contract negotiations with Greyhound later this year. Don’t allow yourselves to be numbed by media claims that the economic crisis means we must limit our expectations. Now is the time to stand together and demand full dignity on the job, full union rights, full civil rights for every worker in the intercity bus industry, and an end to all the daily ripoffs that management continues to subject us to.

Local 1700 members should mobilize around Vice President Joe Biden’s recent call for “green jobs, those jobs that pay well, can’t be outsourced and will help us move toward a cleaner, more selfsufficient energy future.” No jobs fit that description better than bus driver, bus mechanic and bus service worker.

Our union, working with the grass-roots groups that powered Obama to victory, must muster the political will to mobilize as never before to support President Obama’s program of progressive change and to mount an effective resistance to the huge, very well funded effort of big business to derail President Obama’s plans.