The Party for Socialism and Liberation is mobilizing to stop CTA fare hikes, service cuts and layoffs. There will be a protest at the CTA Board meeting on Thursday, November 12. For more information on the campaign to stop the CTA budget visit NoCTAcuts.org.
 Fight the CTA 2010 Budget: No Fare Hikes, Service Cuts or Layoffs! Hands off Free Rides for Seniors! |
The Chicago Transit Authority’s recently revealed 2010 budget recommendation represents an unprovoked attack on the working people of Chicago at a time when people, especially poor and unemployed workers, need the exact opposite: relief in a time of severe economic crisis.
The budget contains massive layoffs, elimination of many bus routes and services and fare hikes that would make the transit system in Chicago, the nation’s second largest, the most expensive public transportation service in the United States.
Under the 2010 budget, the price of a one-way ride on the city’s elevated train and on 19 express bus routes would rise from $2.25 to $3.00, a 33 percent increase. The cost for a ride on a regular bus route would increase from $2.25 to $2.50. A seven-day pass for unlimited rides on both trains and buses will shoot from $23 to $30, while a 30-day pass will go up from $86 to $110.
U-passes for students are slated for a 23 percent increase.
The budget will eliminate nine express bus routes, and will impose drastic service cuts on both train and 41 non-express bus routes. Overall, the service cuts would mean a 9 percent decrease in train service, roughly 58,000 hours per year, and an 18 percent decrease in bus service, about 827,000 hours per year. Many buses will start service later and end earlier.
Suburban transit services have proposed similar increases in fares. Metra, which provides rail service to the surrounding Chicago land area, will impose a 6 percent hike in its one-way ride fares. It will also raise the price of a weekend pass from $5 to $7 and will charge riders an extra $5 for purchasing a ticket from a conductor as opposed to buying a ticket from the ticket window at a station, up from the current $2 fee. PACE bus service in the suburbs is also on the chopping block.
CTA workers and riders: stand together and fight!
Along with these devastating fare increases comes a ruthless attack on the city’s transit workers. Slated for elimination are 1,000 union jobs and 100 non-union jobs. Non-union members will be forced to take 18 unpaid furlough days and unpaid holidays and will be denied raises for the third year in a row.
The end of the free-rides-for-seniors program, a recently installed policy, is also being considered. Illinois Governor Pat Quinn backs this elimination. He says the program should be limited to low-income elderly riders. The media has been a main player in spreading the lie that the program is a “fiscal problem.”
CTA President Richard Rodriguez places the blame for the drastic budget measures on the current capitalist economic crisis that has caused a $300 million shortfall in the CTA budget. Rodriguez has also insinuated that the union is part of the problem— that large take backs are the solution to layoffs and rate hikes.
Unions represent 90 percent of the Chicago’s transit workers. Rodriguez has threatened more layoffs if the unions don’t agree to take backs like forced unpaid days off and unpaid holidays. Members of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the union that represents most of the CTA workers has announced that they “are not about to give up anything.”
“We’ve been stepping up for decades, and at this point, this membership doesn’t want to step up,” said Darrell Jefferson of ATU Local 241 (ABC 7 Chicago).
Fares could and should be decreased, not increased!
These fare hikes, service cuts, layoffs and attempts to squeeze the livelihood from workers are not solutions to any problems, let alone solutions to the supposed budget shortfall that the CTA faces. According to the Chicago Sun Times, over the past three years the top CTA managers have all received double-digit salary increases. President Richard Rodriguez enjoys a healthy yearly salary of nearly $200,000, with the heads of the other members of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA, Metra, Pace Bus) making even more.
For the Illinois and Chicago governments, profits for big business come well before working people and the public services they need. Mayor Daley promised over $4 billion for the failed 2016 Olympic bid, has privatized parking meters and sold them off to bailout recipient Morgan Stanley and gave United Airlines $50 million to move its headquarters to downtown Chicago.
Free rides for seniors, pensions and union wages are in no way reasons for workers to be denied free, quality, public transportation in Chicago, Illinois or anywhere else in the country. There is no sense in which CTA workers are part of the problem. This divide and conquer strategy should be recognized for what it is and rejected.
The state of Illinois, the city of Chicago and the Chicago Transit Authority could very easily find the money to cover any would-be budget gap. In 2008, GDP in Illinois was $637 billion, which if thought of as a country, would make the state the 18th richest country in the world.
The federal government has spent over $9 trillion bailing out Wall Street and the big banks, has let executives give themselves ridiculously huge bonuses, and conducts imperialist wars of aggression and plunder all over the world, yet unemployment and foreclosures continue to skyrocket and social services continue to be under attack.
The capitalist class’ claim that the only way we can maintain essential services is to have workers pay more, get paid less or lose their jobs. This is a lie, a deliberate attack on the working class and an attempt to force the people to bear the brunt of the capitalist economic crisis.
If the working people of both the city and the state stand together, we can stop the fare hikes, layoffs and service cuts and this blatant attack on the transit unions. Fares could and should be decreased, not increased. Transit should be free for all.
For more information and to get involved in the struggle visit NoCTAcuts.org.
No fare hikes! No service cuts! No layoffs!
Hands off free rides for seniors!
Money for transit, jobs, education, housing and health care; not bank bailouts and endless war!
