Adrianne Shropshire

Their Day In Court: TWU leaders face the judge

On Friday, Roger Toussaint, Ed Watt, and Darlyne Lawson will file into a Brooklyn courthouse in the next segment of the transit strike of 2005, and thus beginning the official criminalization phase of this drama. The three union leaders face personal fines, fines for the union, and the potential of losing dues check-off, which would mean that the union could no longer systematically collect dues from their members.

Criminalizing workers and their leaders for acting to maintain a decent quality of life for themselves and their families smacks of the worst kind of anti-union, anti-worker hostility. There is a new and sinister campaign to discredit unions including an effort lead by an organization called The Center for Union Facts. This group recently placed full page ads in a number of national newspapers including the New York Times, that blames unions for job losses and plant closures in the US. Corporate irresponsibility and a global trade policy that sends jobs around the globe in search of cheaper and cheaper labor, and more and more desperate people apparently has nothing to do with plant closures. These business-lead and financed anti-worker efforts continue the downward free-for-all that characterizes the lives of workers in this country and around the world. There is no bottom, only increased profits for a few, and an ever eroding quality of life for workers.

On Thursday, community groups, faith leaders, and other supporters will gather at city hall to demonstrate their ongoing support for TWU local 100 and their fight for dignity and respect in the workplace. These supporter know that this fight is about more than simple bread and butter issues but is about the future of all workers, union and non-union, in our City and beyond.

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Posted at 12:38 PM, Mar 01, 2006 in Labor
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