WHILE British railworkers are fighting to defend the right to an eight hour day. counterparts in America are up against drive bosses to increase the legal limit on the working day to 16 This and other attacks on US railworkers take place at a time when big business is on one of the mOSI CORCe EE against working people seen for decades. Monetarism is the watchword in Britain. In the US these attacks go under the Reaganomics.
Today American ment figures are higher than at any time since 1939. A full 50 per cent of black and Latin youths can find no jobs. In heavy industrial areas like the Chicago/Northern Indiana steel centre. ment stands as high as 30 per cent.
Does it sound familiar? There are even more parallels. It was no accident for instance week's Economist argued that a cood outcoma to the current British dispute would be 'the destruction of ASLEF in much the same manner as President heagan.. destroyed the air traffic controllers in America last year' Most railworkers in the have been working without a conLIAEL SIREE April 1981. tracts expired following a serious C-TCET InTuCea Dv IauwoKes on the government - subsidised and regulated, DUL DrIVETAI Conrail line. This line carries much of the freight in and out of the north eastern part of the country.
Reagan threatened to liquidate the company completely, selling off the most profitable lines. the face of this blackmail, unions called a national march on Neicannuoan ncaae their a sman protest action by rail OTTICIE forms. Thirty TE WOKE S T nES uu inflicted a stunning rail workers. offensives were eliminated.
other been gutted. years now, unemploy- frozen.
belts.
unemployordered TRATASI beck and call of the company magazine pretty obstacles.
US tion is legal The con- upsurge the craft structure OwnAd unions separate reinforced unions are cratic Most rail contracts we nave to work under Washington. Their demands were LEBERKS The union leaders had in mind They only estimated 1,200 marchers on the This •monsieTior permit thousand But no sooner had the marchers returned home when unior leaders signed an agreement that CrUCIP loss on con Index-linked wages are Thousands jobs were wiped out. Safety and work practices that have been in effect for decades have For et -least twa wages have bean backs With this victory under their rail bosses are moving to establish the Conrail precedent as the norm for industry nationwide.
Reductions in crew sizes, flexible rostering and the longer work the ing day are all at stake. If they get 200bn away with this, railworkers can be report anytime.
NOIOCEESL anywhere, to go any place at the US railworkers are up against formidable instance tionalisation labyrinth of federal laws and red tape that date from the Railway Labour Act of 1924 rule that there day Io must be up to two years arbitretion and appeals before strike ac their unions.
which resulted in industry-wide organis. ation in most basic industries, left rail untouched. Today railworkers are divided into some unions, situation which the infamous 1924 Act has Finally. the most powerful rail notoriously undemoalWO CErS even have the right to vote on the difference between the US and Britain is the private and management of American railways, although they government subsidised and 'regulated". Huge financial bonan zas for the railway capitalists have come from a cozy partnership bet banks and e rail companies Te COVeMAMeT land handouts in the 19th century were only the start the rail bosses let the railways deteriorate, they organBosn Hetees around the tables in secret meeting rooms of When mey reorganise ine consolidate a new profitable concentration and monopolisation of industry. 'merger-mania' as it's known. sweeping the US. And it's moving full speed ahead on the railways.
Smaller firms - whose service Line livelinoods o1 farmers and small businesses becoming less viable. Many will be gobbled up by the five or six giants that will remain.
Socialist railworkers in the US are calling for an end to all cutservice entire industry on the basis of human need, not profitability.
zenaness TOT this and other vital social services can come from closing the tax loopholes for rich and especially from the year Pentagon for war and nuclear It's also necessary to remove the rail industry from the tetters of private ownership. But as the current British crisis shows. na in itself doesn't guarantee the rights of labour This will come with the control of day operations on the railways by the workers, through The nationalised industry must be administered by an independent democratically elected body of workers and consumers.
more and more American workers are seeing that the solution to our problems can't be met on an industry by industry. or on a union by union basis. The solution must be political.
Above all, workers in the US need an independent political party based on our class. Solving this independence the next giant step of American labour