Fight Back! - News and Views from the People's Struggle

Chicago mobilizes for immigrant rights - next step March 21 in Washington D.C.

Fight Back — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:07:24 +0000

Chicago, IL - Over 1000 young, undocumented immigrants and supporters gathered at Union Park here, March 10, followed by a march to “come out of the shadows.” This kick-started a national week of action for immigration reform that will lead up to a protest in Washington, D.C. on March 21. Immigrant rights protesters chanted, “Undocumented and unafraid!” as they were making their way towards Federal Plaza.

Eight young immigrant activists, members of the newly formed Immigration Youth Justice League shared their stories in front of thousands of people and encouraged other undocumented youth to come of out the shadows and join them in their fight for immigration reform. One of the speakers, Tania Unzueta said in her speech, “I know that I am tired of hiding…I do this knowing the risks we’re taking are necessary,” referring to publicly declaring her immigration status. Tania is one of the 12 million undocumented immigrants who came to this country wishing to fulfill their dreams of a higher education and a better future.

On March 21 tens of thousands will march in Washington to demand Congress act to pass immigration reform. They are marching because the Obama administration has failed to enact legislation to aide families torn apart by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are fighting for legalization for all.

Drivers licenses for immigrants passes first legislative hurdle

Fight Back — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:29:57 +0000

Saint Paul, MN - On March 10, a bill that would allow immigrants to get drivers licenses in Minnesota passed its first hurdle in a key vote. By a vote of 8-5-1, the "drivers license for all" bill, HF1718, passed the House Transportation and Transit Policy and Oversight Committee.

According to Jovita from Mujeres en Liderazgo (Women in Leadership), the group leading the campaign, "This was a victory." More than 60 Latino immigrants and immigrant rights supporters packed the committee hearing room at the State Capitol to pressure the committee to support the bill. They held signs that read, "Drivers licenses for all!" Jovita noted, "Many people came to the hearing - families, mothers, some with kids - and we told the legislators about our experiences and about the importance of public safety. The community presence at the hearing was important." The large community presence and the testimony of immigrant women and supporters of the bill clearly made an impression on the committee members.

The drivers license bill would change Minnesota law to allow anyone who lives in the state to apply for a drivers license, regardless of immigration status. Currently in Minnesota, state residents have to prove their immigration status to get a drivers license; it is not considered enough to live, work and pay taxes in the state. This creates a huge hardship and constant fear among immigrant workers, who are mostly forced to drive to work due to inadequate public transportation, and then face increased chances of being stopped due to racial profiling. Without a drivers license, immigrants who get stopped while driving risk getting their car impounded and have to pay a huge fine to get it back. They also get a ticket and sometimes are taken to jail with the threat of deportation. Additionally, it is a public safety issue since drivers without a license cannot get car insurance.

Two Republicans on the committee were vocal in opposing the bill. Rep. Mary Holberg (R) raised the specter of identity theft and invoked the threat of terrorism and 911. Rep. Greg Davids (R) called on Patricia McCormack, the Director of Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services Division to testify whether her agency would support or oppose this bill. After repeated pressing, she said she would oppose the bill, because they can't be sure that passports from other countries have enough 'security features' to be legitimate identity documents. One person present at the hearing commented that, "Considering that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] accepts foreign passports as legitimate identity documents for people immigrating to the United States, it doesn't make sense that the Minnesota Driver and Vehicle Services Division would require a higher level of security than ICE." Opponents of the bill tried to associate the drivers license bill with unrelated issues. But the women from Mujeres en Liderazgo and attorney Bruce Nestor focused in their testimony on the daily difficulty in the lives of people who live in Minnesota without access to a drivers license, and on the public safety issue of unlicensed drivers not being allowed to get insurance.

This is the first time in about a decade that the immigrant community in Minnesota has pushed the legislature for the right to a drivers license, signaling an increasing confidence in the struggle for equal rights. After the committee voted to pass the bill, supporters met in the hallway to celebrate and plan their next moves as the bill moves on to a maze of committees in both the House and the Senate.

Colombian activist Liliany Obando's trial postponed again

Fight Back — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:15:32 +0000

The jailing and repeated postponement of trials of Liliany "Lily" Obando tells the story of a powerful woman. She is dealing firsthand with the extreme repression facing many Colombians who oppose the government. In Colombia there are over 7000 political prisoners. Colombian trade unionist Liliany Obando was arrested in the summer of 2008. Her arrest came during a string of attacks by the Uribe government targeting leaders of Colombia's growing struggles for social change.

Obando is a typical Colombian. She has taken up the challenge to fight for the rights of the people - the ones who don't matter to the rich in charge in Colombia and their puppeteers here in the U.S. government. Through her work with FENSUAGRO, a Colombian union, Obando championed the rights and welfare of Colombian farmers and rural wage laborers. Her work was transparent and legal under Colombian law, but Liliany Obando now sits in prison.

In Colombia dissent is dangerous. This is especially so for FENSUAGRO, as Colombia's largest peasant and farm worker federation. "We consider our struggle a just and important struggle. We fight for farm workers in defense of life, land and territory," explains one of the union's leaders. The union fights for farmers because they have learned repeatedly that the Colombian government will prioritize the rights of multinational corporations over the rights of a Colombian farming community. Their organization teaches organic growing practices, seed preservation and union organizing.

In their many years of struggle FENSUAGRO became a strong union, a union that has saved communities, changed lives for the better and that brought the voice of rural workers to the ears of all of Colombia. For the work that they do, their members and supporters are abducted, detained, arrested and murdered. FENSUAGRO is the most targeted union by military and paramilitary violence in Colombia.

"Lily's trial has everything to do with her work with FENSUAGRO," says James Jordan of the Alliance for Global Justice. "The Colombian government is trying to destroy the union. The war in Colombia is built around driving farmers off their land and of course the union is at odds with that goal." Obando is charged with rebellion. This is a charged linked with the Colombian government's claim that she raised money for Colombia's growing insurgency, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC-EP).

The charge of rebellion is a non-specific charge used in the country to imprison student, union and social justice leaders, often for years at a time. The government uses these long imprisonments as an attempt to cripple a growing movement. "It's a consecutive process of arrests. They can imprison 20 people in jail for two or three years and only after that length of time are the prisoners released because there is no evidence against them. By then they've already arrested another 20," further explained the FENSUAGRO leader.

This concept is certainly clear in the Obando trial. Her trial only began after a year of imprisonment and since then she has faced constant postponements. "Basically she's dealing with a system and, in particular, a judge who has shown himself overly lenient towards the military and paramilitaries but with Lily, won't even consider routine home detention and presents a court process that is constantly delayed", stated Jordan.

Jordan continues, "Lily spends a day or two in court and then waits weeks and weeks in prison for another session while members of the military are being released after 90 days for not yet having been brought to trial. The military officials - who everyone knows are responsible for the massacre in Mapiripan- the judge is just letting them walk." In Obando’s most recent two-day session on Feb. 15 and 16, her trial was again postponed for another two months. This has happened repeatedly over the course of seven months since the trial was scheduled to begin. The constant rescheduling is an exhausting process to put Obando through, it makes it difficult for Obando’s supporters to attend the court sessions, and furthermore, makes home detention and ever more reasonable request.

"Of course they're not going to be fair," stated Jeremy Miller. Miller traveled to Colombia as a representative of the Colombia Action Network this past summer and met with Obando in prison. "Lily's trial is another attempt by the Colombian government to criminalize any dissent. We have to remember too that this is also a fight for the sovereignty of Colombia. The U.S. is trying to build seven military bases in Colombia and has always intervened in Colombian affairs for their own interests. They've spent $7 billion trying to control people in Colombia. Lily is a threat to the rich because what she is doing is right. She stands for the truth and for justice. They're scared of her and the people like her because they are losing their battle."

Supporters of Liliany Obando all over the world, including trade unionists in Canada and Australia as well as Latin America solidarity activists in the U.S., have been targeted for interrogation and harassment. This is in addition to the ongoing intimidation Obando herself deals with every day. In Colombian prison, Obando faces misrepresentation of facts, outright lies, coercion from guards, the theft and mistreatment of personal belongings, as well as the threat of being moved to another prison.

"Despite everything, Lily's spirits remain strong", reports Jordan. "She continues to organize from the prisons and to fight for the rights of all political prisoners. In the face of everything she has not backed down, nor given in to the false claims against her. She's a fighter. She's an inspiration."

The next session of Obando’s trial is scheduled to begin April 22 and 23. To donate to Liliany Obando’s legal defense send a check or money order made out to the “Alliance for Global Justice” to AFGJ, 1247 E Street SE, Washington, DC 2003 with “Lily Obando Defense Fund” in the memo line.

“Stop threatening education rights protesters”

Fight Back — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:10:09 +0000

Milwaukee, WI - On March 11, over 70 students, professors and teachers assistants picketed outside the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee chancellor’s office, as several organizers met inside with the chancellor to demand that he drop the threat of academic punishment for the 16 student protesters who were arrested during the March 4 National Day of Action for Education Rights.

“15 police in riot gear were inside the building protecting the chancellor,” noted Students for a Democratic Society organizer Rachel Matteson. “We won two basic demands today, which were to have the chancellor participate in a public forum about the demands of the UWM Education Rights Campaign and to have more investigation into the excessive use of police force on March 4, but the academic punishment of the protesters is still uncertain and the much larger struggle for student and worker rights must continue.”

Many students report that Chancellor Santiago had ready three swat vans, two police wagons, 20-30 police in riot gear and six cops on horseback - all hidden behind the university dormitories.

Iraq: Elections under the barrel of the occupier’s gun

Fight Back — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 04:55:14 +0000

Parliamentary elections took place in occupied Iraq on March 8 as rockets and mortars slammed into the Green Zone and U.S. military bases across the country. The U.S. government and its allies in occupied Iraq have hailed the election as a victory for democracy (Newsweek went so far as to write “Victory at last” across the cover of their latest issue), but the reality is anything but. The elections are nothing but a continuation of the same illegal, unjust occupation political process that began when the U.S. invaded and overthrew the anti-imperialist Iraqi government in 2003. The latest election only serves to consolidate the existence of a puppet regime loyal to the U.S. occupation.

Indeed, consider the two front-runners of the election, current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Allawi provided bogus information about the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to British intelligence that helped build the case to invade Iraq in 2003. He cooperated with numerous foreign intelligence agencies to help overthrow Saddam Hussein’s government. As a servant of the occupation, Allawi presided over the horrific assault on the city of Fallujah in November 2004, in which thousands of Iraqis were killed while the city was reduced to rubble by the U.S. military. He went on to help set up death squads to target resistance forces and those who sympathized with the resistance; these death squads murdered tens of thousands. As for Nouri Al-Maliki, the blood of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis is on his hands, as he co-led the effort with U.S. forces to wipe out the Iraqi national resistance during the ‘surge’ of 2006 and 2007. His government is infamous for its support to sectarian death squads that targeted Sunni Iraqis.

Clearly nothing democratic or progressive can emerge from either of these loyal servants of the U.S. occupation.

Repression in Iraq

The election was carried out under the eyes of 100,000 U.S. troops and 675,000 occupation police and soldiers. Numerous reports of intimidation, assassinations of candidates, voter fraud and corruption emerged in recent weeks. (Iraq is ranked 176 out of 180 for the most corrupt governments in the world.) Over 500 candidates were banned from participation in the elections, after puppet Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki declared that the candidates were supporters of the underground Baath Party. The Iraqi newspaper Azzaman reported that a week prior to the elections, 67 bodies were brought to the Baghdad morgue, all shot with silencer guns. The sources to Azzaman reported that the majority of those killed were civil servants, former Baathists and army officers. A day later Dr. Thamer Kamel, head of human rights section at the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, was shot dead.

Iraqi resistance calls for boycott of elections

The Iraqi resistance, which continues to carry out over 180 attacks each week against U.S. and occupation forces, urged a boycott of the parliamentary elections. “We will not be a party in the electoral process and in the political process as long as the occupation exists in Iraq,” explained Professor Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, the Secretary General of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq and the spokesperson for the Jihad and Change Front, one of the largest resistance organizations in Iraq. “It is a principle we abide by and we will hold the same position until the withdrawal of the occupation.”

In a prepared statement, the Jihad and Change Front, a coalition of ten resistance groups, said, “The Iraqi people and its resistance see that the participants of the political process from the blocs, parties and individuals do not represent the will of the Iraqi people. The participation to election is to strengthen the will of the occupation and to enable him to extend and enforce agreements to realize its interests. It will bring us nothing only destruction and corruption.”

Reality on the ground in Iraq

Contrary to the rosy pictures painted by commanding General Raymond Odierno and the mainstream media, conditions in Iraq are extremely dire. Over a million Iraqis were killed by occupying forces over the six years, leaving millions of orphans and shattered families. Tens of thousands of Iraqis languish in occupation jails. Two million Iraqis have fled the country; 3.7 million are internally displaced. Less than 100,000 returned to their homes last year.

Baghdad has an average of 15 hours of electricity a day. About half the population has access to more than 12 hours of electricity a day. 50% of Iraqis lack adequate housing; less than half of Iraqis have access to drinking water and only 20% have access to sanitation services. Only 30% of Iraqis have access to any level of health services - never mind that most hospitals are severely understaffed and undersupplied. Unemployment and underemployment haunt millions of Iraqis who struggle to make ends meet for their families.

In the 1970s and 1980s, oil revenues were used to benefit the entire Iraqi population and Iraq had one of the most advanced medical systems, best educational systems and highest literacy rates in the Middle East. Today, all of that has been destroyed.

End the occupation

As the occupation drags into its seventh year, the need to rebuild the anti-war movement and pressure the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq has never been greater. Despite the propaganda and the lies to the contrary, nothing progressive or democratic can emerge in Iraq until the hated occupation is ended and Iraq’s people are free to determine their own destiny. Progressives in the United States must support the patriotic forces who resist the occupation and do everything possible to hasten the day of Iraq’s liberation.

Solidarity from the students in Philippines with March 4 education rights protests

Fight Back — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:43:44 +0000

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement of solidarity from student groups in the Philippines with the participants in the March 4 day of action.

STRUGGLE FOR EDUCATION RIGHTS

RESIST STATE ABANDONMENT AND COMMERCIALIZATION OF EDUCATION

Solidarity Statement from Philippines

March 4, 2010

Various students and youth belonging to the ANAKBAYAN Philippines (Sons and Daughters of the People), League of Filipino Students and Student Christian Movement of the Philippines, together with the National Union of Students of the Philippines and College Editors Guild of the Philippines, join in solidarity with the students, youth and education sector across the United States of America in the March 4 Nationwide Day of Action to Defend Education.

The picture is clear everywhere. It is the people who bear the brunt of rescuing big capitalists in this great recession, with the increasing slash on social welfare funding including education.

In the US, the anti-students and anti-people policies like the policy of 32% tuition hike passed by the University of California Board of Regents last November 2009 deserve the strongest condemnation of the youth. Most affected also are the peoples of color and the students from working families who are still struggling with their outstanding mortgages.

Similar cases of tuition hikes have also been experienced in other states, all blaming cutbacks in government funding.

Last year students, workers and faculty in the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) also militantly defied Governor Paterson's ill-willed proposal of $698 million education budget slash which were to directly effect a raise in tuition fee for SUNY up to $620/school year, $600 for CUNY and $400 for community colleges.

In Europe too last November, there had been massive workers-supported students strikes like the mobilization of about 250,000 all across Germany in the clamor against the introduction of tuition increases and curriculum revisions.

Students in Austria and even in Scandanavian countries decried the bail-out for the banks and held walk-outs and “university occupations” in resistance to the European Union's Bologna process which is to drive education more to serve imperialism.

Student movements in Asia Pacific especially in Indonesia, India and Korea had also agitated against the worsening condition of the youth with the state abandonment of education.

We therefore commend our fellow youth and students in New York City and throughout US for their courage to stand up inside the “belly of the beast”.

Cut-backs on state funding is abandonment of government's responsibility and an outright attack to the people's most basic right to education. It paves way to tuition and exorbitant fee increases, academic staff lay-off, cramped up rooms, and a host of other infringement as commercialized regime on education is imposed in various levels.

To delude the public, the government use as an excuse the “nominal increase” in education funding which is always lopsided and unproportional to number of new entrants. The more obsene is the use of the argument that higher education is no longer a right and therefore with the use of the “globalization mantra” everyone is urged to pay for their education. Education is a commodity with a price-tag.

In the Philippines, the myth of the “liberal education” instituted from the American direct colonialism in our country up to current regime, is unmasked as an ensuing and worsening education in crisis that is colonial, commercialized and fascist in character.

The global recession further worsened the Philippine education sector for in truth, the current Arroyo regime has been ruthlessly attacking our basic right and with all servility imposes the policies of imperialist globalization that has led to worsened commercialization of education. In the tertiary level from 2001-2008 alone, the Arroyo regime presided over the 70% increase of the national average tuition and an allotment of measly 1.8% of GDP given to the entire education budget, pathetically way below the international standard and among the lowest in the world.

What happens to the youth who cannot continue their education? They are added to the battalions of reserve labor force or unemployed or join the cheap semi-skilled work-force who are most exploited in times of capitalist crisis.

Faced with such attacks on our fundamental rights, we have no other option but to fight back. This is a lesson we have learned through decades of fearless struggle, and a lesson we will continue to uphold until we are victorious.

Once again, we Filipino youth raise our fists in solidarity with you in the continuing struggle to end the foreboding annual budget cuts and tuition increases. We must join our hands in resisting the onslaught of imperialism against our education and the youth's future.

Education is a right, not a privilege!

Gainesville University cops shoot African grad student

Fight Back — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 03:39:44 +0000

Gainesville, FL - Graduate student and teaching assistant Kofi Adu-Brempong was shot in the face with an assault rifle by officers of the University Police Department, March 2. Adu-Brempong was mentally distressed, and the police had been called in response to reports of a scream coming from his on campus apartment.

The police report released immediately after the incident alleged that Kofi attacked the officers with a pipe and knife when they kicked in the apartment’s door. A judge asked for a more complete report within 72 hours. The second police report has revealed that he didn’t have a knife in his hands and that the pipe was his walking cane.

Information later revealed that Adu-Brempong is 5’5’’, less than 150 pounds, severely disabled from a childhood case of polio, and that the shooting occurred less than a minute after the officers entered the apartment. Student and community groups are calling for an independent investigation and questioning the veracity of a police report that has changed multiple times.

When evidence emerged that the shooter was Officer Keith Smith, who had previously been dismissed from the Gainesville Police Department for throwing eggs at African-Americans while off duty, student groups began organizing for a rally to demand justice. A rigorous investigation needs to be conducted in regards to the shooting of an unarmed disabled man in his own on campus apartment.

The Coalition for Justice Against Police Brutality, formed out of groups including Students for a Democratic Society, the Student Labor Action Project, the NAACP, the African Student Union, and the Alachua County Democratic Black Caucus, have called for a rally of students and community members on March 16. The rally will take place 10:50 AM, Turlington Square on Newell Dr, Gainesville, FL.

March 4 Education Protests Rock the Nation!

Fight Back — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:10:24 +0000

The March 4 national day of action for education was a huge success! Over 100,000 people marched, rallied and took action at over 100 schools and colleges. The biggest protests were in California, both on college campuses and in city streets. College students and union members joined parents with their children, as well as high school students, to demand education funding from the state government. Across the country, students, union workers and faculty marched across campuses and rallied outside administration buildings, while administrators hid or snuck out the back door. In some cases university chancellors and presidents locked themselves inside their offices surrounded by police while students tried to deliver petitions.

We are excited to see a new movement arising out of California and spreading in response to the various states’ budget crisis. We oppose program and class cuts, layoffs, pink slips, furlough days, raising tuition and fees. We stand against university presidents closing African-American, Chicano/Latino and oppressed people’s programs and centers. We oppose shutting down women’s centers and gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender support programs. Cut administrators and their bloated salaries, not financial aid and childcare! We oppose the rich and their politicians, while supporting the struggle of students, workers and educators. We say states should tax the rich and not pit education against other needed social services! Now is the time to mobilize the masses and raise the level of militancy. When the governors and boards say, “Cut back,” we say, “Fight back!”

The right-wing media is claiming that student protesters are self-serving and greedy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The students are fighting for what is right in an attempt to forge a better society. What the corporate media and rulers are truly afraid of is the possibility that the student movement will spark a broader movement during the economic crisis. The education rights movement is a challenge to the powers that be, because of the example it sets. And the powers that be respond accordingly - just look at the 16 arrests at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

March 4 was a tremendous day for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) both locally and nationally and more students should join SDS so the education rights movement can continue. It is important to organize protests both nationally and on the local level, uniting activists to make practical mass demands in the context of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression. At colleges, coalitions of union workers, graduate student and faculty unions and student organizations like MEChA and SDS can make an incredible difference. Students from kindergarten through high school, parent and community organizations alongside teachers’ unions are uniting to find common demands and stop privatization.

These coalitions have and will bring out hundreds and thousands of protesters to march and place demands on school and college administrators, boards of education, state legislators and governors. There is also growing resistance to the federal government’s spending on war abroad and anti-union policies in education at home.

The fight has just begun, there are more cuts coming. State budgets are in crisis and it is not going to get better anytime soon. University administrators wring their hands and point at politicians and governors. The politicians, funded with wealthy people’s money, give excuses and even justify themselves as carrying out the ‘people’s will.’ It just isn’t so. In our country, education is more and more about big business and profits and less and less about what is good for people or for a just, fair and healthy society. We have begun to build a mighty movement to defend public and free education.

Chop from the top!

Tax the rich!

Education, not occupation!

March 4 Education Protests Rock the Nation!

Fight Back — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 02:10:24 +0000

Chop from the top!

Tax the rich!

Education, not occupation!

Tuscaloosa Bus Drivers Win

Fight Back — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:35:22 +0000

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Network to Fight for Economic Justice on the important victory on by bus drivers in Alabama.

Alabama Bus Drivers Win Union Contract!

Statement from the Network to Fight for Economic Justice (NFEJ)

Union bus drivers at the University of Alabama are celebrating today! They voted to accept their first union contract late last night, March 8, 2010. All the members and supporters of the Network to Fight for Economic Justice are rejoicing with them!

Organizing a union and winning a first contract are difficult enough. To organize in the South where racism and intimidation are strong factors, is spectacular! The union workers and leaders of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1208 are to be congratulated for their grit and determination. They stood up and sent a message across the country, “We’re NOT going to take it anymore!”

Most of the bus drivers are African-American, and many are women. The key to victory was uniting the workers and having solid allies in the fight - especially the University of Alabama Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). SDS organized the campus support that shifted the balance in favor of the union. The students stayed up past midnight making poster board signs and showed up at the bus depot by 4:30 AM to walk the strike picket. While the bus drivers held the picket lines, SDS rallied students to actively support the strikers in ending their poverty wages. Public opinion overwhelmingly supported the bus drivers. It was powerful!

SDS also brought in the Network to Fight for Economic Justice to organize national call-in days targeting UA President Witt. The first call in day demanded Witt make a statement in support of the hard working bus drivers. The second one, during the one-day strike, demanded President Witt stop university “scab vans”. Union leaders and activists, welfare rights organizers, community organizers, and students called from at least thirty cities and towns - including Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, LA, Tucson, Boston, Birmingham, Asheville, Gainesville, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Milwaukee, Olympia, Chapel Hill, and New York City. Mario Harmon, the ATU Local 1208 Secretary Treasurer, could not be more thankful for the solidarity shown.

The gains made by establishing the union contract are important and will benefit every worker. The First Transit management, part of British corporation FirstGroup, will no longer be able to fire workers at a whim. The union provides fairness to everyone. The wage increases negotiated at the table will raise most drivers out of poverty. The drivers won one more personal day, for a total of three. When a bus is unsafe, management will have to listen to the driver.

The rank and file bus drivers will have to prepare for the next contract struggle down the road. The union will need to make gains around affordable health care, sick days, and wage increases to match other union bus drivers. Today however, the victory is won! The workers now have a contract to build upon and they are setting an example to other workers to stand up and take back what belongs to them!