Below, please find the text version of the flyer put out by the NYC Greens / Green Party and distributed last week, on the same day that the strike was being called off ....
I especially want to thank Tony Gronowicz for contacting many of the locals to obtain their input and endorsement. Not everyone liked all the turns of phrase, but they put aside the non-essential differences to get the flyer out. THAT'S HOW WE SHOULD ALWAYS BE WORKING TOGETHER!
Also want to thank the West Queens Greens for the sentences we lifted from their flyer, Mark Dunlea, Craig Seeman, Gwen Debrow, Carl Lawrence, Stanley Aronowitz, Todd Eaton, Gloria Mattera, for their input.
If you'd like the laid-out ready-to-distribute flyer as a Word Attachment, please let me know and I'll send it.
- Mitchel Cohen
NYC Greens/Green Party of NY NY GREENS SUPPORT THE TRANSIT WORKERS' EFFORTS
“For all the rage and bluster that followed, this war was declared over a pension proposal that would have saved the transit authority less than $20 million over the next three years. It seemed a small figure, considering that the city says that every day of the strike will cost its businesses hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues.”
- NY Times, December 21, 2005
The populist mask has been ripped from the face of those leading the charge to break the Transit Workers Union. From billionaire media mogul Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, to millionaire real estate developer and former owner of the NY Post Peter Kalikow who heads the MTA, to millionaire George Patakai, Governor of the State of New York, the vicious class interests of those running NY's government are dripping like blood from the fangs of the Vampire.
Nonviolent workers refuse to allow themselves to be called “thugs” and “criminals” by those in power. We Greens want to make this clear: The Green Party agrees with and supports the Transit Workers: The two-tier pension plan was sprung at the last minute by the MTA despite its claim of a $1 billion surplus - an attempt to sow resentment, distrust, and bad feelings between the proposed two catgories of workers. It would destroy union solidarity. In short, it’s the MTA’s way of trying to divide the membership, bust the union and drive down the standard of living of all workers. This continues regardless of the results of mediation and negotiations.
Predictably, the millionaires and the media are demonizing the transit workers and attempting to impose heavy penalties on them for exercising their right to withhold their labor in order to defend pensions and health benefits. These issues are essential to all working people in the U.S. Studies show that transit work is more hazardous than work in the coal mines. The retirement age of 55 is not some extravagance - transit workers breathe in steel dust, concentrated pesticides on the tracks and fumes in the bus barns. Workers should be allowed to retire afer twenty years on the job regardless of age due to the environmental conditions workers face and the cumulative health effects. Greens stand proudly with the transit workers and urge all to do the same.
The Green Party condemns the anti-labor Taylor Law that criminalizes city workers who exercise their basic right to strike, and the officials who refuse to enforce the sections of that law against the MTA that make management's pension changes illegal. From the federal to the local level, the millionaires have proven that they (and the government they run) care more about profit and war than the needs of poor and working people, the environment, and public health and safety. We demand that NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer - who wants to become Governor next year - immediately withdraw his prosecution of the union and its officers in Court and reject the Taylor law.
This government spends $1.5 billion every week for war and occupation in Iraq, giving away billions to Halliburton, Bechtel, the Carlyle Group and other giant corporations, but insists that it is “too poor” to be able to provide decent pensions and healthcare for people here at home. Bloomberg and Pataki support the war in Iraq. TWU Local 100, on the other hand, has been an active participant in the antiwar movement. It organized buses to bring workers to the September 24 mass antiwar demonstration of more than 300,000 in Washington DC, and challenged the rightwing Republicans when they held their presidential nominating convention here in NYC in 2004. Government officials are bent on smashing the union for its opposition to the war and its fight for the workers it represents. But Greens say: “TWU Local 100 marched with the antiwar movement; now the antiwar movement marches with the union.”
Greens believe that public transportation should be free - the subway fare was a nickel from 1904 to 1948 - and funded by increasing taxes on wealthy corporations that profit from the transportation of workers and consumers to their stores. Multi-billion dollar corporations move wherever they please to exploit low wage labor and anti-environmental regulations, but the millionaires say that workers cannot use their only real weapon, the strike, to improve their standard of living. Capital is speaking loudly against this strike through its mouthpieces in government and media. Workers need all of us to speak out in defense of the right to unionize and strike to achieve a better standard of living, and to prevent the millionaires from being the only voices heard.
This flyer was written by the NYC Greens / Green Party. Contact: nyc-Greens at yahoogroups.com
Endorsed by:
Brooklyn Greens <mitchelcohen at mindspring.com> Bronx Greens <cllundgren at earthlink.net> Stanley Aronowitz, Green Party candidate for governor of NY, 2002 West Side Greens <J201Moran at hotmail.com> Tony Gronowicz Green Party candidate for Mayor of NYC, 2005 www.greenmayor.org Manhattan Greens <rfelshin at yahoo.com> Manhattan Office Committee <info at greenparty.org> Flushing Greens <day_of_change at yahoo.com> West Queens Greens (Ann Eagan: 718-482-0170; Jerry Kahn: 718-728-1092) Staten Island Greens <statenislandgreens-owner at yahoogroups.com> Staten Island South Shore Greens Park Slope Greens <daniliebling at yahoo.com> North Brooklyn Greens <mborino at yahoo.com>
WHAT TO DO
Call Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, and tell this candidate for Governor to STOP pressing for fines and jail time against the union and its leadership under the Taylor Law: (212) 416-8000
* * * * * Call Governor Pataki and demand that he and the MTA remove the last-minute pension proposal that sets up a two-tiered system among transit workers. 518-474-1041
* * * * * Call the MTA and give them a piece of your mind: (212) 878-7274
* * * * * Call Mayor Bloomberg and tell him that you are outraged by his vicious, divisive rhetoric: (212) 788-3000
- and -
Call the TWU and express your support and solidarity with the workers on behalf of yourself, your neighborhood, and the NY State Greens/Green Party of NY. And then go out and join the picket lines. (212) 579-3381