Decline of working class

‘A group of masked individuals gave subterranean vandalism an activist tinge this week: They tampered with subway entrance equipment with the aim of letting commuters in Manhattan and Brooklyn ride free - NY Times Sunday, April 1, 2012’.

We here in why did you join the union do not agree with this type of behavior - it is wrong. TWU Local 100 does not engage in this type of behavior - we are model citizens, role models to our children and hard working employees. However we are known to follow in the footsteps of one of our founders Michael J. Quill - responding at a crowded press conference: "The judge can drop dead in his black robes!" against the administration of Mayor John V Lindsay when the city obtained an injunction prohibiting the strike and succeeded in imprisoning Quill.

We do not agree with the point of view of those masked individuals Marxist perspective - we are not interested in changing the world. What we as TWU Local 100 members care about is coming to work, paying our bills, going home to our loved ones and then collecting the pension. Our struggle is to remain in the middle class - it is pure labor management tug of war.

We are happy that our president John Samuelsen is on top of this issue. Second to our fellow co workers station agents who follow the standard operating procedures. Remember the old idiom ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’ So be alert for May 1 or any other day of trickery. 

Much has been written about the decline of the middle class in actuality the decline of the working class. This decline is attributed to a variety of sources - the increasing sophistication of technology and inability of most people to understand it, the loss of a work ethic, high taxes and foreign competition. One issue is almost always missing which is class power. The decline in working class living standards corresponds closely with the decimation of the primary defender of workers, the labor union. In a society like ours it is impossible for any given individual to safeguard his or her economic position. Only by acting together in union such as ours TWU Local 100, can most of us hope to face the MTA with anything approaching a level playing field.

All of you are aware that MTA is so long accustomed to seeing us simply as a cost of production, each one of us is a number (pass number) rather than to treat us TWU Local 100 members as human beings with respect that all people deserve. In other words of the old labor anthem ‘Solidarity Forever’ the union (TWU Local 100) would ‘make us strong’.