Greyhound workers and supporters rally in Boston

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BOSTON-More than 200 unionists and their supporters rallied at Faneuil Hall here on May 17 in a show of solidarity with striking workers at Greyhound. Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1205 in Boston, along with Greyhound workers around the country, have been on the picket line since early March.

Greyhound management, led by Fred Currey, has lately been telling the media that the strike is over. But Tony Romano of the Boston Carmen's Union, a sister ATU local to Greyhound workers, told the crowd, "It will not be over until every single Greyhound worker is back to work with a decent contract."

Greyhound workers went out on strike after the company refused to bargain in good faith at the outset of the negotiations. Fred Currey, described by one speaker as "a Lorenzo clone," set out to bust the union. The workers did not want to strike.

In the last seven years, drivers have taken big wage cuts. In 1983, they gave back 18 percent in wages and benefits. In 1987, they lost 30 percent. Now wages are down to the 1975 level.

"Boot the bus!"

The Rev. Graylan Ellis-Hagler set the tone for the evening. Ellis-Hagler is a leader of Boston's Black community and a longtime supporter of the Greyhound workers. He was arrested during the militant 1983 strike.

He noted that Greyhound owes the city of Boston $500,000 for police protection at the local terminal, and is on the verge of defaulting on that payment. Striking a theme familiar to everyone in Boston, he told the crowd, "You know what happens when you default on a parking ticket. Somebody comes along and boots your car. What we want to see is the same treatment for those buses. Boot the bus!" The cry of "boot the bus!" was heard throughout the evening.

Ellis-Hagler took up Greyhound manageHarold Schonbrun Harold Schonbrun, veteran Trotskyist militant, died in Chicago, Ill., on May 20 at the age of 74.

Schonbrun, a long-time supporter of Socialist Action, joined the Trotskyist movement in 1938 in Toledo, Ohio. An article on his life will appear in the July issue of Socialist Action.

6 SOCIALIST ACTION ment's theme of the strike being over. "That is the corporate point of view. We see it differently from a union and a community point of view. We say that the strike isn't over with; it's just begun!"

"What they don't understand is that the community also has a say in this, because Greyhound isn't going to earn one dime until ridership goes up," stated Ellis-Hagler.

"And ridership is not going to go up as long as you're on the line," he continued, "because we're going to respect that picket line, and we're going to stand out there with you.

"And no, we won't ride the dog! We in the community won't give our lives away, or put our lives in the hands of inexperienced drivers, who don't know what in the world they're doing. No, Boycott the dog!"

"Blood is on Currey's hands"

David Scondras, a member of the Boston City Council, described legislation he has introduced in Boston that would outlaw the hiring of so-called "replacement" workers during a legal strike. He asked the crowd to contact the other councilors and "tell them that you want them to pass this anti-scab (continued from page 1: “Cops use car bomb explosion First!”) concessions since a hard-fought seven-week strike in 1983. In 1987 ATU members had their wages cut some 30 percent after Currey bought the company in a leveraged buyout for $350 million.

When the strike began, many of the 6300 drivers were making as little as $6.50 an hour and could work up to 10 consecutive days before getting overtime pay. Wages were also contingent on the number of passengers and drivers' safety records.

Besides the drivers, the ATU represents some 3000 mechanics, cleaners, and clerks. Other mechanics are organized by the International Association of Machinists, who are not honoring the ATU's picket line.

Edward Strait, president of the Amalgamated Council of Greyhound Local Unions, the ATU's bargaining unit, called the company's new proposal "worse than the ones we had before. We're going backwards."

Employers are out for blood While Greyhound claims it is servicing 98 percent of its routes, strikers point out that many former routes have been dropped and JUNE 1990 law to protect the Greyhound workers."

"I know that Boston isn't itself a union," Scondras declared, "but it is a union town.... It has the right to stop the activities of any company that leads to violence or death....

Mike Holden, a striking Greyhound worker who chaired the meeting, described an incident that had happened the night before the rally. "This Greyhound scab driver got out of his bus and he beat Roy Nutter [the president of Local 1205] with a club. He hit him in the face several times, and he had to get 10 stitches around his jaw."

The scab, who police refused to arrest despite the presence of many witnesses not involved in the strike (including security guards from a local hotel), is alleged to be an ex-or off-duty New York City cop.

Holden displayed the blood-soaked shirt and picket sign Roy had been holding. "That blood is on the hands of Fred Currey and all the other greedy bastards in this country like Lorenzo....' "They [Currey and Lorenzo] don't care about workers," Joe Walsh, an international vice president of the ATU told the crowd, "they don't care about people, and they sure as hell don't care about unions. Well, Mr.

ridership is down significantly.

The ATU top leaders are using more than the strike to try to force Currey to the bargaining table. They've hired Brian Freeman, a banker, to examine a possible unionled buyout should Greyhound go bankrupt. Freeman recently put together a union buyout of United Airlines under an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). That deal, which imposes major concessions on the workers, is pending bank financing.

This initiative by the ATU officials comes on the heels of the general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board authorizing the board's regional office to file an unfair labor practices complaint against Greyhound. The counsel charged that Greyhound had unlawfully imposed certain contract proposals before negotiations reached an impasse.

The Greyhound strike is important for the labor movement. Since the destruction of the air traffic controllers union in 1981 by the Reagan administration, the organized labor movement has been in steady retreat.

The unionized workforce continues to decline. In the private sector (excluding government workers) it is 12.4 percent compared to 16.8 percent in 1983. Overall, unions represent only 16.4 percent of U.S. workers. The employers are more and more out for blood. Fred Currey and Frank Lorenzo are They are urging local NOW leaders as well as all unionists to petition the members of the AFL-CIO committee charged with presenting a recommendation to the Executive Board. Socialist Action readers are urged to help in this effort. [For further information contact CLUW at (212) 242-0700.] Currey and Mr. Lorenzo, without trade unions you're nothing. You're zilch. Without our experienced labor to make your companies run, you're nothing.' Broad union support The audience at the rally included union electrical workers, hotel workers, garment workers, Eastern machinists (who were given a special welcome), Harvard University clerks and technical workers, schoolbus drivers, communications workers from NYNEX, Amtrak workers, and others.

Other speakers included Paul ustace, secretary of labor for Massachusetts; Jim White, the secretary of the state Office of Handicapped Affairs; state and regional AFL-CIO representatives; and representatives from a number of these unions, who presented checks to Local 1205 for their strike fund.

ATU locals from Bonanza Bus Lines in Providence, R.I., and Peter Pan Bus Lines in Springfield, Mass., presented checks, and the Peter Pan representative told the crowd that drivers and mechanics there had just voted overwhelmingly against a contract offer. "Management thought we'd be intimidated by Greyhound. No way!"

not unique; they are just leading the pack.

Greyhound's management is out to destroy the union. Trade unionists and other supporters of the labor movement need to redouble our solidarity with these workers. We need to keep Currey's back to the wall. We need effective solidarity—mass picketing to keep the buses in the garages, or, where that isn't yet possible, to limit the number of passengers riding the scab busline.

The labor movement must also rally to the defense of two strikers victimized for allegedly shooting at a scab-driven bus. Harry Lewis and Roy Simes were arrested April 10 on federal charges and denied bail May 11.

The Teamsters at a Midwest regional conference voted to donate $4000 to aid their defense effort. Defending these workers is an effective way to expose the complicity of the cops, courts, and Currey's scab outfit, and to support the workers' right to strike.

Since the strike began one striker, Bob Waterhouse, has been killed and more than 60 strikers injured. Court injunctions limiting picket size and location have been issued in more than a dozen cities.

Standing firm against the bosses is the only way the union movement will begin to revitalize the slogans "an injury to one is an injury to all" and "solidarity forever" until victory is won.

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