Greyhound strike tests U.S. labor

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PRACTICES ent(continued from page 1: “Greyhound strikebreaking tests U.S. labor movement”)to allow the buses easi ly break through the cordon of to 300 pickets.

'The following day, November 18, further steps taken in the union-busting plan could be observed. In San Francisco postholes were being drilled into the ground of the bus depot lot early in the morning. Later that day high chain-link fences were installed to allow openings for buses to pass through while restricting the flow of the picketers on what had previously been an open public lot. The new arrangements make it easier for the cops and hired goons to maintain effective control over what they are treating as a battlefield.

The Greyhound corporation is out to smash the union if they can. To do this, they must succeed in rolling the buses through the picket lines, gradually restoring full service and increasing passenger loads. • The specter the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization experience in 1981 hangs over the head of the ATU. The air traffie controllers' strike was broken and PAI destroyed when the pickets were unable to stop either the planes or passengers from flying.

Greyhound will not be satisfied with merely compelling the ATU to accept big contractual cuts if they think a kill is possible. They will surely go all the way it they can toward eliminating the union entirely, as Reagan did • to the controllers. But the Greyhound union is a tougher nut to crack than PATOO. Its experience and ties to the labor movement are more extensive, and people who ride buses are potentially far more sympathetic to striking workers than are airline passengers.

Nevertheless, the PATOO defeat shoul serve as a serious warning. Capitalism is undergoing a major long-term crisis that has been developing for over dozen years. They are compelled to squeeze workers for more concessions in desperate attempt to counter a decline the profit rate. If the bosses fail to do so, experts warn that an economie collapse on the order of 1929 is probable. This is what drives the take-back offensive. But the strategists for big business know that sooner or later there will be a powerful counterattack by labor. We can be sure their current tactics fit into a longer-term battle plan to bring the unions to heel.

Unions Bui by Stopping Scabs The unions were built by defying court injunctions and stopping scabs at the gate. To fulfill the corporation's aim oi breaking workers' resistance to the take-backs, the unions must be crushed the same way that they were built--in picket-line battle!

2 Socialist Action December 1983 In the course of this union-busting, the illusion that concessions are won by union officials' clever bargaining is being dispelled. This illusion was created by years of improvements in living standards easily gained "at the bargaining table" since the time of the last big battles won by labor after World War II. There are three contributing factors to this illusion:

1. The momentum of picket-line wars in the 1930s and 1940s, which successfully shut down workplaces, paid off in easy gains for many years. Union bargaining power is backed by the convincing threat of another such defeat for the bosses.

2. The unprecedented three decades of prosperity since then permitted the U.s. capitalists to grant concessions in exchange for class peace.

3. A bargaining strategy was employed by the labor officialdom that traded off working conditions and union security clauses--peeling away the substance of union power--for modest wage increases. In his book Labor's Giant Step, a history of the CIO from the early 1930s to the late 1950s, Art Preis aptly described this as the "hockshop method of bargaining." Preis accurately predicted that it would lead to the erosion of union power.

New Mood of Combativity But despite the power of their adversaries and the flabby state of the unions, the Greyhound workers are surprising everyone by their combative spirit. It may signal the beginning of a new period of growing resistance by workers to the to the decade-long employer offensive against their living standard. The outcame of this struggle will affect the relationship of forces between workers and capitalists for some time ahead. A victory for the Greyhound workers in the current strike would pay off with more than a better contract. It would give working people a powerful push to fight back against the cutbacks and open up a process leading not not only to the recovery of past losses, but even to winning new gains. A defeat, on the other other nana, would have the opposite effect.

The Strike Can Be Won The strike • can be won, but only li the power of the entire labor movement can be brought to bear on the side the strikers. The fact is that all of the power at the disposal of the employing class is already available to the Greyhound management. In San Francisco, there was sufficient force put into action during the first day of controntation • to counter the 200-500 pickets. Now, with the trial run over and the battle plan of the bosses tested, refined, and put into action, larger mobilizat ion of workers is even more necessary to resist the next attack.

Better organization has already been initiated by the ATU in Boston and San Francisco. This includes gaining the active help and support of the labor movement and its allies on the picket lines and through systematic contributions of money. (See story on "Greyhound Strikers' Support Committee.") This will, no doubt,. include help and support by Black, Latino, women's rights, and lesbian/gay activists and their organizations. (The San Francisco ATU pickets appear to be composed of equal numbers of Black, Latino and white workers, and the striking office employees organized in AIU locals 1471 and 1571 are mainly women.) Solidarity and strike committees are already being put together in a number of cities including Boston, Cleveland San Francisco, and Minneapolis.

The Limits of the Bosses' Power There should be no misunderstanding; there are limits to the power the employers can bring to bear. Every act of brutality, every overuse of force on their part can arouse widespread indignation and bring more forces into the(continued on page 11, in “Testing U.S. labor PLO”)A tentative agreement between Greyhound and the Amalgamated Transit Union was announced in Washington on Saturday, December 3. Few details have been released except that the settlement had the endorsement of the Ama l gama ted Council of Greyhound Local Unions, the group running the strike. Local leaders have reported from San Francisco, Boston, and other cities that the agreement is substantially the same as the one just turned down by a 96 percent majority.

Unlike the current proposal, the previous offer had not been recommended by the national strike leadership.

According to Lee Paschel, vice-president of Local 1225 in San Francisco, the tentative agreement calls for a 7.8 percent cut in pay and mileage allowance for drivers, a reduction in the number of paid holidays from 10 to 8, and a deferral of any cost-of-living increases until 1986. He • said the union did get some concessions including a 6 percent increase in pension payments two stages, the elimination of split shifts terminal employees, and an agreement that the company would not hire part-time workers.

The proposal previously rejected by membership had been voted on at regional meetings, where reports and discussion the secret ballot taken there. This time, it was Email. Most informed observers befavorable leadership recommendation and the altered nature of the voting, the vote result will not be so lopsided as the previous one. The result of this poll is not expected to be known until December 20.

In many areas local leaders opposed tentative settlement report their intention to maintain maximum strike pressure at least until the vote results are known.

On Wednesday, December 7, a leaflet was issued by the San Francisco Area Greyhound Strike Support Committee announcing, "'The Strike Goes On!" leaflet calls a mass memorial picket line in memory of Raymond Philips, the ATU picket murdered on December 5 by a scab driving a • Greyhound training bus in Zanesville, Ohio. This memorial was set for Saturday, December 10, at the Greyhound depot at 7th and Mission Streets in San Francisco. D

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Socialist Action

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ATU of GREYHOUND Laca bean ARL-C6 AGAINST GREYHOL

Vote set on new contract offer

reported, the voting will be conducted Pieve that because of