Last week MTA suspended, for 10 days without pay, a veteran mechanic with 24 years of service. His "crime?" Forgetting to check off items on the paperwork submitted by mechanics after inspecting a bus. He also openly disagrees with his supervisor, who doesn't like him, singles him out, and hounds him constantly, determined to fire him.

The mechanic, although rebellious, is individualistic. This also sometimes puts him at odds with his co-workers.  He doesn't always take their advice to lay low, and to think about responding to MTA's attack in a more collective and organized way. Sometimes irritated by his co-workers' criticisms and advice, he doesn't always respond in the most friendly manner.

MTA attacks this worker for following its bus inspection rules

When becoming inspectors, mechanics are sent to classes where they are instructed about how to inspect buses and fill out the paperwork that must be submitted daily to a supervisor.

They make two kinds of inspections:  a minor one which is not too thorough and a major one that is very thorough. When doing the first one, mechanics are responsible for two buses a day. When doing the second one, it is only one bus per day. In either case, if the inspection procedures taught by MTA in those classes were followed, mechanics would be unable to finish one bus in an 8-hour shift.

Yet, this mechanic has been suspended and is being set up to be fired for following MTA's inspection regulations. Being safety-conscious, he meticulously inspects the buses and repairs even minor things. In the past he would stay late to complete his paperwork. This never used to be a problem--since he never got overtime pay--until MTA gave a specific time to turn in the paperwork.

Why is his being meticulous a problem? Because, more buses in the shop and fewer on the road means more expenditure and less revenues for MTA.  Also, MTA requires this paperwork to avoid any liability in case of an accident, and to blame mechanics or drivers for any accident that happens.

Would this mechanic's work ethic be a problem in communism?

Of course not! Safety of drivers and passengers will be our main concern. Mass transportation will be the only means of transportation for everyone – except for persons with very special physical needs.

Since safety will be paramount, there will be not just one mechanic but a team of mechanics inspecting the buses or trains for safety, reducing tremendously the possibility of mistakes. Furthermore, repairs will be done on the spot. We'll only have paper work that helps get this job done, not useless paper work that goes to useless racist management, whose job it is to get the buses out as cheaply and quickly as possible. 

This means cutting corners: just write down and repair the most obvious things, and let minor things go, and do it as quickly as possible. MTA rules governing the required paperwork contradict what they teach in their mechanic safety inspection classes. However, to disobey these rules is to be written up, suspended and eventually fired.

Capitalist disciplining of workers: death sentence by other means

This is the discipline of capitalism's wage slavery. The wage is the whip: no job, no wage; no wage, no life for us and our families. What could be more inhuman than denying workers and their family their basic needs?

In the last four years, at least four MTA drivers that we know of have died because of the stress imposed on them by MTA's reign of terror. Its goal is to eliminate higher-paid "tier one" drivers and replace them with lower-paid "tier three" drivers, while forcing all drivers to submit passively to their exploitation.

Has MTA's CEO Leahy or his lackeys like supervisor Barbara Maycott been tried for their participation in these murders and reign of terror? Have they been fired, suspended or even reprimanded? Of course not! And they'll never be! Neither will be the bosses' racist cops or their mass murderers like Clinton, Bush, or Obama.

We need to join and build ICWP

We need to destroy the tyranny of wage slavery. That is the only way to eliminate capitalism's reign of terror. For this we need a communist revolution. This requires building real unity and solidarity among all workers to challenge not only MTA's attacks but the whole capitalist system.

For this we need collectivity, communist collectivity. Individually we are nothing, organized collectively with communist ideas we are invincible.