Spontaneous Strike Shuts Down Cable Car System

This is a good start.

This is the way workers should be standing up for each other and fighting capital. Don't wait for the bureaucrats to "approve" of workers collective actions. Do it (strategically of course)!

The union is the rank & file. Let's hope this starts some bigger stones rolling.

-Steve (a fewllow transit worker).

It is NOT a good sign. These guys have a contract and there are ways to complain about problems. City law says quite clearly that labor strikes during the period of a contract are illegal. Public workers work for the people, and they have an obligation to perform their duties to the public as long as the contract is in place. (And if they don't like it, they can quit. There are thousands more out there who will take their place).

"Steve"

What you describe is slavery, pure and simple. The only reason why unions sign such contracts is because they are forced to because of the dictates of capitalism (and because of the inhernetly flawed structures of business unionism).

You say:

Public workers work for the people, and they have an obligation to perform their duties to the public as long as the contract is in place.

Public workers work for the "people" in a theoretical sense, yes, but are their direct supervisors and managers also accountable to the people? Who supervises the suporvisors? What recourse have workers, even those that work for "the public", when their immediate bosses violate their rights?

As far as "the law" goes, just because something is "lawful" doesn't make it right or just. Slavery was legal in this country until law-breaking abolitionists made an issue out of it.

Since labor creates all wealth and provides all services, the right of workers to strike should be absolute with no exceptions. Workers shouldn't be coerced into signing no-strike pledges and they should be illegal.

The American Labor Movement has let itself be subservient to the needs of capital for far too long, and the bureaucrats controlling it have pulled punch after punch in an effort to not be tarred as anti-capitalist (a huge mistake and a horrible setback for the cause of freedom). It will be a great day, a GREAT DAY, when labor breaks the back of capitalism once and for all. Any movement in that direction should be hailed as a grand achievement.

So what if some tourists are inconvenienced? People have got to get off their arrogant asses and wake up to the fact that those that pick up our shit and haul the trash we throw away are our equals--our sisters and brothers--and they deserve the same amount of respect as you and me. You wouldn't tolerate somebody suspending you for a wrongful act that you didn't commit or a minor infraction that results in a punishment that doesn't fit the crime, and I'll be DAMNED if I would. Why should these workers expect any less?

Finally, in case you didn't realize it, this site is unabashedly anti-capitalist. If that ruffles your feathers, then tough darts pal!

-Steve Ongerth
Unapoligetically anti-boss and anti-capitalist!

Congratulations to the cable car drivers for finally waking up and fighting back! May all city workers profit from their example and organize for a general strike to stop the Muni fare increases and to demand that the City designate the Financial District as a transit tax district, taxing the profits of the large corporations who benefit from the delivery of thousands of workers to their businesses every day by the City, without whom they could not maximize their profits, the only reason these corporations exist. We also need a City income tax, taxing all income over $125,000 a year from all sources (salary, profits, stocks and bonds, interest) earned by anyone living or working in the City. A small tax on these large incomes would eliminate the City's deficit and house all of the homeless in decent housing.

All of the good Democrats sitting on the Board of Supervisors need to demand their fellow Democrats in Sacramento and Washington restore the corporate profits tax to the 90% it was in the 1950s. That would eliminate all deficits.