I thought that they shut down the city. I assumed that also meant the subway
system. Whatever caused the author to categorize Cuomo as a "progressive
Democrat"? No one else does.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Friday, June 5, 2020 10:30 AM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] COVID-19 and NYC Transit Worker Hell
COVID-19 and NYC Transit Worker Hell
https://socialistaction.org/2020/06/04/covid-19-and-nyc-transit-worker-hell/
June 4, 2020
By MARTY GOODMAN
???We are not essential. We are sacrificial.??? ???from a May 5 Op-Ed article
in the New York Times by Sujatha Gidla, a NYC train conductor and author.
As of June 3, the death toll amongst New York City???s transit workers hit 131.
New York City bus driver Danny Cruz, who himself survived COVID-19, compiles a
Facebook list of his fallen comrades. Cruz explained to the press in early
April, ???Every time I have to add a name, my heart loses a beat???Why is this
happening? Why were we not better prepared? How many more members will we have
to lose???? Cruz made those comments on April 7 when the death toll was 41.
More than 10,000 of 74,000 employees of New York???s Metropolitan
Transportation Authority (MTA) have been quarantined during the pandemic. The
quarantine and death tolls represent totals that are mostly from within New
York City itself. MTA workers are organized by the 41,000-strong Transport
Workers Union Local 100.
By April 8, the MTA death rate from COVID-19 among workers ???was three times
the combined rate of the city police and fire departments, which employ first
responders like cops and EMS crews.??? (NY Daily News, 4/8/20).
In NYC, the rate of COVID-19 deaths within the African American and Latino
communities are roughly double that of other groups, due to capitalism???s
systemic racism. Given that the MTA???s workforce is mostly African American,
Latino and immigrant, capitalism???s racist injustices could not have been more
cruelly on display.
?????We are not essential. We are sacrificial,??? wrote Sujatha Gidla, a NYC
train conductor and author, in her May 5 Op-Ed article in the NY Times.
Gidla described the hellish conditions of a subway Conductor, ???Common sense
tells you that subway trains and platforms are giant vectors of this virus. We
breathe it in along with steel dust. As a conductor, when I stick my head out
of the car to perform the required platform observation, passengers in many
stations are standing 10 inches from my face. At other times, they lean into
the cab to ask questions.???
Gidla added, ???My co-workers want doors locked on the two cars where the crew
rides. We want hazard pay and family leave for childcare.???
TWU International President John Samuelsen, a former NYC track worker and
former Local 100 president, observed, ???A diabolical person could not have
engineered a better spreader of the virus than the New York City subway system.
Transit workers, by the very nature of the work we do, we develop lung
disorders at a disproportional rate. We breathe in diesel fumes, steel dust,
manganese from welding. When I started as a track worker in the ???90s, a lot
of the old-timers who were on the job then later died of lung disease.???
John Costa, International President of the International Amalgamated
Transportation Union (ATU), the largest of the two U.S. transit unions, says
that less than half of his members have masks, gloves and proper disinfectant.
Costa says strikes are possible if agencies don???t respond to worker concerns.
????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
THE MTA???S RESPONSE TO COVID-19
The MTA is a NY State run entity that is $43 billion in debt to bankers and
Wall Street crooks. The agency is overseen by Governor Andrew Cuomo, arguably a
???progressive??? Democrat, who has claimed that NY State is ???broke.??? Cuomo
has cut funding to hospitals and education before the pandemic began and seeks
even more cuts.
During the entire COVID crisis Cuomo???s MTA routinely claimed to be merely
following Trump???s CDC guidelines, despite the alarming early number of
transit worker deaths.
Early on, an April 3 MTA memo warned workers not to wear masks. An MTA official
stated it would ???panic??? passengers. As no surprise to anyone, the Trump
administration has not issued rules guidance on the right to refuse unsafe work.
At the onset of the crisis, Patrick Foye, MTA CEO and Chairman, employed the
hollow excuse that it followed Trump???s Center for Decease Control
(CDC) safety guidelines. Since 2012 the MTA has had an emergency ???pandemic???
plan to stockpile PPE and other supplies that were supposed to last six weeks,
but not used. The World Health Organization declared a ???pandemic??? on March
11.
But, NY State isn???t really broke as Cuomo has been claiming. There are
112 billionaires in New York State worth a combined $525 billion, many of whom
contributed to Cuomo???s election campaigns. If NY???s greedy class was taxed
meaningfully, which would include taxing Wall Street???s trillions through a
stock sales tax, NY???s debts would evaporate overnight.
The sequence of MTA lies and hypocrisy was exposed in a May 5 video entitled
???They dropped the Ball,??? by ???Business Insider.??? The 12-minute clip
(search Facebook ???They Dropped the Ball???) includes interviews with several
transit workers who railed against the MTA???s ???safety??? practices, despite
its??? public relations boast that it distributed millions of dollars-worth of
PPE and performed 72-hour train sanitation practices.
Workers interviewed in the video said that they had not received PPE for weeks
and bus sanitation schedules were not observed.
Initially, workers were told not to wear masks as it violated uniform policy
and might alarm passengers (May 19 Bus memo). Train Operator Kimberly McLauren
told the Business Insider, ???Some locations received masks. Most did not.???
Moreover, this writer, a retired NY transit worker, has viewed Station Booth
daily sanitation logs that were completely without entries.
On April 30 Cuomo announced that trains and buses would cease operation and
sanitized nightly, in part by non-union workers filling the staffing gap left
by self-quarantining TWU Cleaners. The non-union cleaners are often immigrants
working without health benefits.
Cuomo???s nightly train operation includes the ejection of innumerable homeless
from trains who are then bused to overcrowded, unsanitary and unsafe
???shelters,??? which many homeless refuse to enter. Under Mayor Bill de
Blasio, a ???progressive??? Bernie Sanders supporter who is also threatening
city workers with possible layoffs, there is a record 21,000 plus homeless New
Yorkers seeking refuge from the street. A coalition of homeless advocates have
protested the nightly round-up in a statement that said, in part, ???While
hundreds of thousands of apartments and hotel rooms go empty???homeless New
Yorkers have nowhere safe to stay. This is absolutely wrong and unacceptable.???
The ???Local 100 Fightback Coalition??? has also proposed using these vacancies
to house essential workers near their jobs during the pandemic, enabling the
shut-down of the pandemic plagued transit system.
After returning from quarantine on April 27, veteran MTA Train Operator Seth
Rosenberg, a member of the Local 100 Fightback Coalition, told Socialist
Action, that the horrific employee death toll represents, ???The complete and
utter disregard for our lives by the MTA. Because of Cuomo the MTA didn???t
shut down and transit workers paid the price.??? By the middle of March, says
Rosenberg, the MTA, ???would not do the minimum to keep us safe. The MTA showed
how repugnant it is.??? (see Facebook:
Local100 Fightback Coalition)
Bus workers took the initiative to tape off the front section of the bus to
restrict driver contact with passengers, except for seniors and the
handicapped. Riders boarded for free at the rear door. Bus officials conceded
the safety measure to bus worker rank and file action.
Likewise, Seth Rosenberg and other train operators taped off a half-dozen seats
next to the door to the operator???s cab. The door has a vent and permeable
gaps that allow COVID-19 infected air into the train operator???s cab. Despite
the worker???s safety precautions, Rosenberg was told by supervision to remove
the tape. He did but followed it up with grievances. He still faces discipline
for his potentially life-saving act.
Rosenberg was successful however in challenging MTA management over packed crew
rooms that were in blatant disregard of social distancing.
The MTA???s smaller subdivisions, the 5,000 employee-strong Metro North ???
which has suffered three deaths from COVID ??? and the Long Island railroad
system both extend beyond NYC. Metro North and Long Island train workers can
strike legally and negotiated concessions from the MTA during the pandemic
crisis, unlike NYC MTA workers who are subject to the union-busting Taylor Law
strike prohibitions. Local 100 defied the Taylor Law when it went on strike in
2005.
Indeed, the MTA???s COVID-19 policy ??? and the entire national COVID response
??? highlights the contempt both capitalist parties have for the welfare of
working people and the working poor, offering chump change financial relief,
with no job or housing security and ever-longer breadlines.
TWU International President Samuelsen politically partnered with Gov.
Cuomo when they cemented two contract agreements containing wage cuts for new
members ??? creating a second-class union membership ??? violating basic union
solidarity principles.
Nonetheless, TWU has issued a 10-point list of demands in an undated release
that appears on the TWU Local 100 website. The list is notable for its largely
toothless demands, which are unaccompanied by calls for worker action.
But, bottom line, no strikes were called by the TWU and ATU, two
class-collaborating labor union leaderships ??? no matter what the death toll!
Socialists say, ???Fire MTA CEO Patrick Foye! Cancel the MTA debt to the banks
and Wall Street crooks!???
Cut the war budget and fund a green mass transportation system that is safe for
workers and passengers!
Socialist Action says, ???Capitalism is the virus!???
Related Articles
Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Gay Community: Then and Now June 1, 2020 Today Dr.
Fauci is well known as a trusted scientist who is trying to guide the country
through a pandemic. Gay men and lesbians who were involved in fighting the AIDS
epidemic knew Dr. Fauci as a more complex figure in their struggle with the
head of the NIAID.
[Updated] The Plague of Racist Cop Murders: Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and the
COVID-19 Pandemic May 28, 2020 By JEFF MACKLER George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery,
Breonna Taylor and many more Black people have been murdered by racist cops
every day. Meanwhile, Black people are dying of COVID-19 at a rate 3 times
higher than whites.
Pandemic Capitalism???s Cruel Absurdity
May 24, 2020
By MARK T. HARRIS
The United States has the highest number of Covid-19 cases and deaths in the
world. Capitalism???s inexorable drive for profits over human needs got us here.
--
___
Carl Sagan
???Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of
wonder and awe. Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend
to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will
prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront
the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the
Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will
penetrate its deepest mysteries.???
??? Carl Sagan, Cosmos
