Darrell Jefferson, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241 declared that the union would consider striking if the Chicago Transit Authority goes through with its proposed layoffs based on a claimed $300 million budget shortfall. The CTA warned that if the union doesn’t agree to salary freezes and unpaid furlough days it will be forced to push fares through the roof, drastically cut bus and train service, bleed pensions and throw nearly 2,000 union workers out onto the street.
At a Nov. 2 press conference, Jefferson, whose local represents bus operators, mechanics and other staff, pointed to the fact that state law requires that the CTA must start its cuts from the top.
“The Metropolitan Transit Act says … that management and exempt people should make up only 3 percent of the total number of employees,” said Jefferson. “We estimate CTA being somewhere like 15 to 18 percent. Laying off people and you’re still gonna be heavy in management, I think you’re asking for a war more than a layoff.” (WBBM780)
Local 241 would face the most layoffs as a result of the CTA board’s proposals. Jefferson knows that there will be a fight ahead: “The CTA only wants you to hear what they have to say. They don’t want you to bring solutions to the table.” (ABC7 Chicago)
The union is fighting to protect the contract it had won in 2007 that guaranteed an 18 percent raise in wages by 2011. The CTA has no right to use the capitalist economic crisis to beat down the modest gains of Chicago’s transit workers. The workers did not cause this crisis and will not pay for it.
The members of the CTA board need to fill that short fall with cuts to their own bloated six figure salaries or just simply get out of way and hand control of Chicago’s transit system over to people who actually work for a living. These capitalist stooges will never defeat the workers as long as the people stand and struggle with them and demand that the CTA keep their hands off union jobs and wages!
