SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA--By an emphatic 2 to 1 margin last Saturday, A/C Transit workers rejected the latest contract offer. Although the contract offer was supported by both Union and management, the rejection amounts to more than just a "no" vote. It is, in fact, the result of an emerging new level of working class activism. The masses are mobilizing.
To accommodate all three shifts, day-long voting took place at the Union hall in Oakland. All day- even past five o'clock in the evening - groups of 'vote-No' drivers picketed outside.
Friday morning, A/C drivers in at least one division had witnessed something never seen before.
BART workers (train drivers) leafleted them as they went to work. The leaflet predicted that BART workers would again reject the contract they were being offered and called on A/C workers to support them.
Governor Brown ordered a 60-day "cooling off" period in the BART strike about two weeks ago. Apparently some rank-and-filers are using it as a 60 day agitation period! Political reality changes quickly when workers are in motion But our goal in this struggle should not be for a "better contract," which only creates the dangerous illusion that capitalism-imperialism can be reformed to meet our needs. Contracts only justify and legalize the terms of our exploitation as wage slaves. Our goal should be to abolish wage slavery and all contracts, together with capitalism- imperialism.
There is a growing realization among transport workers that they play a central role in the dayto- day running of capitalism. In part the bosses' own media let the cat out of the bag when they cried over the 4-day BART strike costing the areas' major companies some $73 million each day.
This growing awareness of their power, along with their anger at the misrepresentation of their case in the press and the treachery of their Unions, is sending more and more in search of new strategies and new understandings.
This was certainly the conclusion reached by a handful of Red Flag activists who distributed newspapers and leaflets to drivers and passengers the day before the vote.
We argued that the major issues in this contract were a direct result of the battle for worldwide economic supremacy between the USA and China. We urged workers to look at this contract struggle not so much as a labor dispute as an incident in class war. And we asked them to join us in the long march to communist revolution.
"What is communism?" one passenger butted into our conversation with a driver. With a slight edge in his voice he said, "Give me a short answer!" We thought a moment. "It's a system," one of us answered, "that puts the needs of people first and the needs of money or profits in the dustbin." He paused. "That's a deep idea," he said taking Red Flag.
While there was openness to our communist arguments (letters page), the idea of turning the contract dispute into a political strike against US imperialism seemed a bit of a stretch to most of the drivers.
In part, this reflects the development of their class consciousness, or realization that since workers create all value in society, they should run it too. However, it also reflects the newness of our ties with the transit workers. In the twisting course of a revolution, though, it's not where you are coming from but where you are going, that counts!