payday | Friday evening, bus drivers in New York City and members of TWU Local
100 refused to cooperate with police in transporting arrested Justice
for George Floyd protestors.
The action comes a day after bus drivers in Minneapolis also refused to assist the police in transporting arrested protestors; shutting down the Twin Cities’ transit system.
“I told MTA our ops won’t be used to drive cops around. It is in solidarity [with Minneapolis’ bus drivers],” JP Patafio, vice president of TWU Local 100 told Motherboard.
Payday Report has learned that transit union leaders
nationwide are instructing members not to cooperate with police in
arresting protestors.
Many union leaders have instructed their members that their union
contracts protect them against being forced to work in dangerous
conditions. They have informed their union members that their unions
would use organizational legal resources to protect bus drivers who
refuse to cooperate with the police.
“It’s safe to say that bus drivers in a lot of places are going to be
refusing work,” said one top labor leader, who wished to remain
anonymous.
For decades, transit unions, which are heavily African-American, have
sought to build community alliances around environmental racism and
expanding public transit communities. These community-labor alliances
have helped communities to expand transit services in many areas.
As a result of this organizing, many transit union leaders are
vehemently opposed to helping with police crackdowns in communities of
color.
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