Minneapolis, MN – After months of negotiations with the Metropolitan Council, 2200 Twin Cities bus drivers, dispatchers, maintenance and clerical workers went on strike at 2:00 a.m., March 4. The transit workers, members of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, last struck in 1995.

The stakes in this contract battle include affordable health care benefits for current workers and the future of retiree health care benefits.

In the first few weeks of the strike, management appeared to have the upper hand. Elements in the Local 1005 leadership had placed much hope in reaching a last-minute deal. In doing so, they delayed building the community coalition necessary to win this strike. There are natural constituencies in the thousands of Minnesotans who rely on public transportation and the even larger numbers of working people in the state concerned about the health care crisis.

A Boost

A week into the strike, transit workers received an important boost when more than 700 strikers and their supporters demonstrated at the University of Minnesota, March 12, to demand justice for workers on strike against Metropolitan Transit. The action was organized jointly by AFSCME Local 3800, a local of University of Minnesota clerical workers who were on strike themselves just months ago, and transit workers of ATU 1005.

In addition to transit and clerical workers, the crowd included students from the University of Minnesota and members from several unions, including the postal workers union, Laborers, Teamsters and SEIU. Mary Brandl, member of AFSCME Local 3800, said, “The support we got from MTC drivers during our strike will never be forgotten.”

The forces lined up against the bus drivers are the same right-wing politicians that striking University of Minnesota clerical workers faced last fall. The Metropolitan Council is led by Peter Bell, a right-wing ideologue tied to the Center for the American Experiment, a far right think tank. Peter Bell represents Governor Tim Pawlenty’s agenda of busting public sector unions and driving down the wages and benefits of public sector employees. Rather than deal with the health care crisis, Pawlenty and his cronies attack affordable health care for all workers.

As a member of the University of Minnesota Board of Regents, Bell spearheaded the union busting campaign against workers at the university. Clerical workers at the university, members of AFSCME Local 3800, refused to be intimidated by Bell’s union busting tactics and went on strike for 15 days.

First at the U of M, and now with the Metro Transit employees, Pawlenty and Bell have provoked strikes over health care. Speakers at the rally, including Michelle Sommers, Vice-president of ATU Local 1005, demanded that Pawlenty and Bell act now to deal with Minnesota’s health care crisis.

Governor Pawlenty and Bell do not care about the 220,000 Minnesotans who rely on public transportation. They are not part of Pawlenty’s political base. However, through vocal organization, this huge base of community support can impact the success of the strike. As the strike continues, the impact on businesses which rely on low-wage bus-riding workers will intensify, pressuring Pawlenty to settle the strike.

Support Grows

As the transit strike entered its third week, more than 1300 transit workers and their supporters rallied on the steps of the state capitol building, March 18. The rally drew from a broad cross section of the labor movement, including postal workers, University of Minnesota clerical workers, Teamsters and some of the building and trades unions.

After the rally, more than 300 of the workers marched to the governor’s office inside the capitol building. Overflowing the governor’s reception area, many slammed Pawlenty, chanting, “Shame on you!” In an attempt to keep more bus drivers from entering the office area, the head of the governor’s security detail and a member of the state patrol attacked a transit worker. No one was intimidated.

At a standing room only fundraiser on March 27 at the Communication Workers of America Local 7200 hall in Minneapolis, speaker after speaker told the bus drivers that their fight for affordable health care was a fight for all working people. The event, which was mainly organized by AFSCME Local 3800, raised almost $15,000 in contributions from local unions and individuals and three truckloads of food for the Local 1005 strikers’ food bank. UFCW Local 789 and UAW Local 879 also participated in organizing the event. The event was endorsed by the MN AFL-CIO, several labor councils and local unions.

This series of rallies has been important in keeping up the spirits of the striking drivers and to help get out the message of transit workers.

The transit strike has hit many communities hard. Immigrant communities in Minnesota particularly rely on bus service and have been affected by this strike. Low-income workers rely on bus service to get to work and many are paying high portions of their income to take taxis to work. Pawlenty ignores the hardship created by the shutdown of mass transit on the working poor. However, a growing number of organizations representing poor people and bus riders began demanding a restoration of bus services and a just conclusion to the transit strike. The demands fly in the face of Governor Tim Pawlenty’s arguments that the strike is having ‘no effect’ and that mass transit is not necessary.

The United Methodist Church in South Minneapolis launched the Share the Pain Campaign. The campaign calls on “all supporters of transit in the metro area to drive to work at the legal minimum speed of 40 m.p.h. We will share the pain with the working poor and the disabled until the buses are back.” The campaign is prompted by Governor Tim Pawlenty’s complete indifference to the bus strike’s effect on poor and working people.

In a related development, a broad-based grouping of religious leaders representing millions of members signed a joint declaration on March 31 calling for a negotiated end to the strike. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, this is the largest coalition of religious organizations on a political issue in years, surpassing even the broad religious opposition to the first George Bush’s Gulf War in 1991.

The official labor bureaucracy has been of less help. Despite official proclamations of support, the central labor bodies and mainstream labor officials have not offered much practical support, prompting a columnist from the Minneapolis Star Tribune to ask what happened to labor solidarity.

The local has set up a Transit Worker’s Support Committee to conduct outreach to the community and help plan rallies. The Local has gotten much support from progressive unions, in particular, AFSCME Local 3800. The support committee is intensifying efforts to reach out to the community and to organize opposition to Pawlenty’s anti-worker agenda.

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