In our society it is murder, psychologically, to deprive a man of a job or an income. You are in substance saying to that man that he has no right to exist. You are in a real way depriving him of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, denying in his case the very creed of his society. -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
There is an important event on Thursday, October 23, 2:00 p.m. The Amalgamated Transit Union, Local 732, ASO Musicians, faith leaders, along with friends, families and supporters are rallying at the MARTA Arts Center Station, 1255 West Peachtree Street to 'demand justice, respect, and equality for all.'
FACT: MARTA Transit workers, thousands of them, are the lowest paid in the nation.
FACT: MARTA transit workers have had no wage increase in years, yet are being threatened with a 15% cut in pay.
FACT: MARTA transit workers are currently without a contract.
FACT: Many transit workers rely on food stamps and affordable housing assistance just to make ends meet.
FACT: MARTA management, refusing to offer a fair contract which would give the workers a much-needed salary increase, is threatening instead to outsource hundreds of Atlanta jobs to a private company.
FACT: MARTA's CEO, Keith Parker, claims 'fiscal responsibility', although with a salary of $345K per year, he is one of the highest paid transit chiefs in the nation.
If the MARTA board wants a top-quality transit system, shouldn't "safe-guarding the livelihoods and working conditions of its workers" be a large part of the solution?
It seems to me that the MARTA Board has taken a bite of that same poison apple we have seen being passed around: 'fiscal responsibility' above all else. What about 'good management', 'fair wages and benefits which allow a living wage to workers and the ability to support their families', 'safe working conditions' ...? Why are these things always so low on management's priorities? Because they cut too deeply into profits and have no value against revenue production? I am so very tired of this ...
But is this Atlanta now? A city run by union-busters? The city that glided smoothly through the Civil Rights Era as the 'City Too Busy to Hate' appears to have metamorphosed into the 'city run by a few who are too busy accumulating debt and counting their wealth to offer any solution except cost-cutting at the expense of those who are doing the real work'.
Union activities used to be punished with imprisonment. Business owners bitterly hated unions, sometimes setting thugs on the workers. Management uses more modern means now -- lockouts, wage starvation, scabs/outsourcing -- to break them up or dilute the union's effectiveness. I think owners go to these lengths partly because they think no one has any right to tell them how to run their businesses. But I also think business owners hate unions because they are well aware of the collective bargaining power of a united work force, and they are afraid of it. What I write in this blog isn't nearly as important as all of us standing together to say it on Thursday.
As Curtis Howard, President of the ATU Local 732 writes: 'Musicians and transit workers may not seem like natural allies, but we must work together to preserve quality arts and quality public transit. Because if the ASO and the MARTA Boards succeed in their plans, they will transform Atlanta from a premier city into a cradle of inequality.'
JOIN THE RALLY!
SUPPORT THE ASO and MARTA TRANSIT WORKERS!
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