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NYC Bus Drivers Don't Want Buses Used in Protest
NEW YORK — A union representing New York City bus drivers has filed a lawsuit to stop the police department from making drivers leave their routes to transport Wall Street protesters arrested in their anti-corporate greed campaign to holding facilities.
A union representing New York City bus drivers has filed a lawsuit to stop the police department from making drivers leave their routes to transport Wall Street protesters arrested in their anti-corporate greed campaign to holding facilities. The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Manhattan by the Transport Workers Union of Greater New York. The lawsuit said police officers on Saturday ordered bus drivers in Brooklyn to drive to the Brooklyn Bridge where police made more than 700 arrests in the Occupy Wall Street campaign.
The lawsuit asks for a court order to stop the police department from using city bus drivers to transport people arrested by police. The city Law Department said in a statement that the NYPD's actions were proper.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllThe transport workers know that Wall Street is going to come, at some point, for their pension fund.
The NYPD hasn't figured out yet that they are on the wrong side.
Wall Street has no intention of letting the NYPD or anyone else retire - that $17 trillion bank bailout in 2008/09 is going to be paid by someone.
The highest rank, the upper management, must somehow be linked to the ruling class, as they are in charge of maintaining the present order. But I agree that the lower ranks, middle management and police officers, are exploited.
http://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/Home/article/ny-13.htm
The NYPD knows exactly what they are doing. Lmao. How stupid to you think Wall Street is? They have been herding American's to the slaughter house for a decade now. They have the money and the guns. Just saying... Know what you are up against.
Awesome! (And I am way over 16 years old, so I do not use that word often.)
Thanks, Transport Workers Union! Great solidarity move.
Second that!
I third that! :)
This is the power we have when we all stick together!!!
Add me to the list.
Holy horse apples Batman. A US union has finally shown that it has a set of cojones.
That's not true Robin. You have already seen teachers and communications workers show that they have them. Still, this is very heartening for those of us who fight for justice and against evil.
Yes, Robin's statement is quite ignorant.
Hasn't he heard about the militant ILWU actions in WA?
Yay drivers union!
Go, drivers!
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Leaving a strategically chosen bus parked in a strategically chosen location might be an interesting response, too, now that the union has had time to confer.
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Thankfully we don't have to drive them off into the water, like in Norway in the '40s.
Thank you TWU As a member of AFSCME I support your decision not to transport protesters for the NYPD.
the law suit isn't going to succeed and drivers aren't going to want to lose their jobs by refusing when all that's going to happen is that non-union personnel will drive the busses.
but it is nice that the union is making the gesture.
I wouldn't be so sure about that. There comes a point in everyone's live when there is something more important than a job.
And Wall St. has made it clear that we all work at their discretion anyway.
resident troll here is just fantasizing about mass terminations of bus drivers for being insufficiently deferential to the Big Apple's uniformed thugs.
I think these nascent occupying demonstrations go way beyond "howling in the wind" and do represent an amalgamation of many ethnic, religious, cultural, economic, environmental and political movements. Take a look at Michael Moore’s recent interviews on 'Democracy Now' for more insight and discussion.
We are the 99% and have the advantage of instant audio, graphic and video communication. Now remember what the mostly uneducated, isolated and much-maligned American farmers accomplished in the late 1700's, in what is called Shays Rebellion, even without our instant communication. They revolted against economic unfairness in what has been called the second Revolutionary War. It's worth researching the remarkable parallel of the post-revolutionary Shay's Rebellion to today’s class warfare struggles. Many of these simple farmers were Revolutionary War soldiers who were told that they were fighting for economic and social justice and then after the War discovered that they couldn’t pay their farm mortgages because they were never paid for their war efforts and some maintained that they were lied to about their farm mortgage payback terms. Though the farmer’s rebellion against the plutocracy of the Boston, Ma-based elitist bankers, merchants and lawyers, was defeated by a monied militia, it wasn’t long before the US Constitution was developed. Be inspired by what these farmers achieved when you tell the plutocracy that you are ”mad as hell and won’t take it anymore”.
Maybe it's time for the bus drivers to go on strike.