Long Island Rail Road Workers Speak on Their Averted Strike

Read our editorial on the significance of strikes here.

Months after union leadership averted a planned strike for mid-September that 4,000 Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) workers voted near-unanimously for, workers are angry and searching for what to do next.

LIRR workers across 5 unions are demanding a 16% pay raise over 4 years to keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living amid a worsening economic crisis. Multimillionaire New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who oversees the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) which owns the LIRR, slandered the workers as “greedy”.

On the eve of when workers were set to strike, union leadership unilaterally reached out to the federal government to establish a Presidential Emergency Board, suffocating the strike by forcing mediation through the PEB and banning a strike for 120 days—a move typically reserved for the bosses.

“They had the whole thing planned out”

According to one worker, the union leaderships’ betrayal of the strike was premeditated: “They had the whole thing planned out,” a worker told us.

Union officials are hoping to play off the contradictions among the two-party mafias, appealing to President Donald Trump to pressure New York Governor Kathy Hochul into giving in to workers’ demands. But the big caveat is that the PEB “robs workers of initiative and the real pressure of a strike,” delaying winning their demands and putting the fight on less favorable grounds. “We’re tired of kicking the can down the road,” another worker said.

“Instead of going through with the strike,” the union leaders “go up to a president who is extremely anti-union,” a worker told us.

When asked why union leaders undermined the strike, workers unanimously responded that they have been kept in the dark about the process by their leadership. Left without a convincing explanation, nearly every worker we spoke to suspects the same thing: “it’s a money thing”, “a back door deal” with the MTA “to fill they own pockets”, with union leaders “getting paid under the table”.

In fact, being the top imperialist superpower in the world, US monopolists are able to bribe the upper crust of the working class with its super-profits from Third World countries. This trend in part explains the deteriorating militancy of the US working class over the past several decades, through its expansion of a labor aristocracy that oversees and facilitates monopolists’ exploitation of workers from within the ranks of the working class itself.

The conditions for a strike were perfect for workers: a unanimous vote by workers in a critical sector and at a critical time that would have cost capitalists millions, forcing them to concede to workers’ demands. The Ryder’s Cup—an international golf tournament in Long Island—was going to take place right after the strike was set to start, adding immense pressure to the bosses and politicians alike to settle.

But there was one thing missing for the workers to win their demands—leadership.

“Compromised and Corrupt”: A Crisis of Leadership

LIRR workers across terminals and positions painted the same picture: “We had [MTA] by their balls with the Ryder’s Cup, but we had no leadership.”

Workers were kept in the dark about the last-minute decision to ask for the PEB intervention and have yet to be given a conclusive reason why.

“Oh, we have an agreement?” a worker expressed his indignation about the union leadership making a backdoor deal with the federal government to initiate the PEB, “When did you talk to the members about it?”

“Union leaders didn’t speak with us…. They act like they’re for us but they’re actually not. They make their decisions behind closed doors,” another worker said.

“They sell us out. They take our money and sell us out,” a worker told us. “If you talk to any of the other workers, they’ll tell you that the union leaders are compromised and corrupt.”

According to workers, the betrayal of the strike is not a one-off issue, but reflective of the undemocratic nature of their business unions.

“Union leaders keep throwing us under the bus,” a worker told us. “We should be able to vote [the union president] out if he’s not doing a good job. Can’t vote him in, can’t vote him out…. There should be majority votes on all things.”

Workers also expressed anger with union meetings: “They have the union meetings [at times and places] that most people can’t make them, and if [workers] disagree they are kicked out,” a worker told us. “No one shows up to union meetings because they do what they want,” another worker said.

“People are struggling, it’s not easy”

LIRR workers face a number of hazards on the job, such as assaults and dangerous conditions. Despite what monopoly media says, many LIRR workers are struggling to get by.

LIRR workers have not received a pay raise since 2022, and their latest demand for a 16% pay raise over 4 years barely keeps pace with inflation.

“Pay isn’t going up, but groceries and food are,” one worker told us. “I’m working paycheck to paycheck and I’m working for MTA.”

On top of that, departments are understaffed and overworked: “It’s cheaper to pay overtime than hire more people and pay their salaries plus benefits and retirement.”

“People are struggling, it’s not easy,” one worker summed it up.

“We are not budging”: What Comes Next

Despite fighting on two fronts—both against the business union bureaucracy and the MTA—LIRR workers have not given up and are set on winning their demands.

Across the board, workers expressed their desire to go on strike and win their demands. While legally workers cannot go on strike until May because of the PEB in place, this has not stopped workers from expressing their desire to strike anyway.

When asked what workers should do now in the face of the PEB, one worker said, “Go on strike. Just walk off the job like we were supposed to.”

Many workers express regret they did not strike anyway when they were supposed to back in September: “We should’ve walked off the job,” one said. “We should’ve done it during the golfing tournament,” another worker told us.

When railroad workers across the country were prepared to go on strike in 2022 and their union leadership similarly betrayed them by calling for a PEB with then-President Biden, workers across the country had also demanded the strike proceed anyway. When this strike did not materialize, a sell-out deal was forced down their throats, giving massive concessions to the railroad monopolies.

Three years later, LIRR workers find themselves in a similar position. What will they do?

According to one worker, it is not too late to seize the initiative and take matters into their own hands: “We all need to unify collectively as a union. Stop taking it for granted, stop dragging our feet…. Look at the same overall objective for everyone” instead of giving in to the “divide and conquer” methods of the bosses and bureaucrats.

What LIRR workers need right now is a leadership that truly represents their interest, to bring the thousands of workers together who are on the same page about getting their demands met and reaching a real unity on how to realize it, PEB or not. To do that, the most militant and class conscious workers must at every juncture act as levers among their coworkers, bringing militancy into the struggle and consciously taking it further than what is permitted by the pacifist union officials and the monopolists. Identify those who are ready to take action and get organized.

It is only by exceeding the limits set by the monopolists that demands can be won. The struggle for economic demands must be linked to the question of the political domination of the monopoly class in general, manifested here in the PEB. Workers must fight on their own terms—not those dictated by those they are fighting against—and link the struggle for their demands to the conquest of political power by the working class.

Without power, all is illusion; as long as the capitalists maintain their class dictatorship, anything won can be taken back if it is not defended. The fight for economic demands today must be linked to the question of political power itself, so that the very basis of this degrading system is uprooted.

Photo: STV

---

The Worker is an entirely volunteer-run revolutionary newspaper free from and radically antagonistic to corporate influence. We rely on the support of our readers to sustain our editorial line in service of the working class and the reconstitution of its party, the Communist Party. Make a one-time or recurring donation to our newspaper today: