AMALGAMATED TRANSIT UNION 57TH CONVENTION AUGUST 26-30, 2013 - SAN DIEGO, CA Reports REPORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENT to the Fifty-Seventh International Convention of the Amalgamated Transit Union Sister and Brother Delegates, Guests and Friends: assist you should you have any problems navigating the technology used to access these materials. It is an honor and a pleasure to welcome you to the 57th International Convention of the Amalgamated These documents will provide you with an overview Transit Union. I would like to express my gratitude to of the successful work ATU has done over the last three the California Conference Board, and especially recognize years – a period during which transit workers, labor Local President Joseph Gotcher and the officers and unions and working families have been attacked more members of Local 1309 for so effectively representing our forcefully than they have been in decades. members here in San Diego. We thank you all for hosting The seriousness of those challenges had just started our gathering here at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. to become apparent when I took office in October We have created an agenda that I think you will find 2010. In response, the delegates to the 56th Convention valuable, educational and enjoyable. The theme of this gave the International a clear mandate for change. Not Convention – So Much More – reflects our conviction only did that mean taking a more proactive approach that while we have accomplished so much in the last toward fighting privatization and union busting, but three years, we have only begun to realize the full it also meant developing a plan to restructure the potential of our International Union. Consequently, Union in a way that would serve our members well in st one of the most important goals of this assembly will be the 21 Century. to provide you with the tools you need to unlock that As I took office, the first major order of business was potential in your own local union. to re-energize ATU’s political efforts in both the United Those tools will be made available, for the first time, in States and Canada. special Convention Training Academy workshops that With that in mind, we first brought all of the national will enable you to go back to your local and accomplish and large local organizations in the United States with so much more than ever before. And, as a result, the a stake in mass transit together to pursue a national combined efforts of all of our locals will accelerate our campaign to restore the jobs and service that were being continuing campaign to create an ever more potent drastically cut because of funding shortfalls all over political force locally and nationally. North America. That meeting took place at international headquarters on October 14, 2010. This week you will be reviewing the work of the last three years, hearing from notable speakers, considering It was at this meeting that our plans for “ATU Boot resolutions, electing international officers, and voting Camps” to teach transit advocates how to become transit upon a plan to restructure the Union. activists began to take shape. These are no small responsibilities, but I have no doubt At a special meeting of the General Executive Board that you will meet the challenges presented to you, just as held in December 2010, the GEB approved a wide- the delegates to prior Conventions have done in the past. ranging list of motions designed to carry out the mandate for change issued by the 56th Convention. Among those In another first, the International has published were motions to: all of the major publications for this Convention in a digital format. In addition to saving the Union a lot • Establish a new Department of Training and Field of money, the digital format will provide readers with a Mobilization that would work directly with local quick and easy way to search for specific material within unions to “strengthen local organizing, legislative our international reports. ATU staff will be on hand to and political activities, and community support.” International President’s Report to the 57th Convention | 1 • Develop strong community-based coalitions In Canada, the Canadian Council gave its support uniting our locals and sympathetic organizations to a bill introduced in Parliament by New Democratic in support of mass transit. Transport Critic Olivia Chow that would establish a “national public transit strategy.” The bill called for • Create a new, additional ATU-COPE program a permanent investment plan for transit systems and that would return and match 100% of a local’s innovation research under the leadership of the federal COPE dollars raised above prior year levels to government. support the coalition building campaigns. The negative political climate in the United States in • Roll out an aggressive communications program 2011 emboldened powerful corporate elites working to get our message across to our members and through an organization called the American Legislative the public. Exchange Council (ALEC) to advance an anti-union • Provide advanced training on coalition building agenda in state legislatures. and activism in both the United States and Through our Field Mobilization Department, the Canada. International was instrumental in coordinating ATU’s involvement in the state movements to defeat the anti- The Field Mobilization team hit the ground running union measures. Consequently, ATU members were in 2011, and was soon assisting campaigns in Chicago, among the thousands working to block passage of an IL; Peterborough, ON; Pittsburgh, PA; Cincinnati, OH; anti-union bill at the state capitol in Madison, WI. Phoenix, AZ; and New London, CT. In Columbus, Failing that, they later worked tirelessly in a campaign OH, and Madison, WI, members fortified the throngs that recalled two of the legislators held responsible for of citizens protesting legislative attempts in their states to passage of the bill. strip public service workers of their collective bargaining rights and bust their unions. In Ohio, ATU members joined Labor’s “full court press” to overturn the anti-public worker union law By March 2011, the International had held two there. Voters overwhelmingly rejected the law. It was a boot camps in the United States, and one in Canada. huge victory for organized labor in which ATU played Similar regional conferences were held in the Western, a vital part. Midwestern, and Eastern states and Canada to provide extensive training for new local presidents to become 2011 was a deadly year for over-the-road (OTR) transit in the United States. Twenty-two people died more effective leaders and advocates for public transit. in four crashes – including a devastating accident in We organized the Union’s first-ever national publicity the Bronx that took 15 lives – over the course of five campaign to draw citizens’ attention to the mass transit months. Driver fatigue was a major factor. crisis. The “Don’t X-Out Public Transit Day” drew In response, ATU published a white paper – “Sudden thousands to rallies all over America and generated Death Overtime” – to raise awareness of the driver major media coverage. fatigue issue. We pointed out that the real culprit behind To bolster our outreach efforts we also began producing driver fatigue was the exemption from the requirement videos to publicize our issues on the Internet and better to pay overtime wages to interstate transit drivers in the communicate with our members. Fair Labor Standards Act. Legislatively, the International promoted passage In 2011, we began our long-range campaign to make of the federal Local Flexibility for Transit Assistance Act people aware that driver fatigue will continue to be a introduced by Rep. Russ Carnahan, D-MO, in 2011, problem as long as curbside operators pay no penalty which would change federal law to allow transit systems for forcing their drivers to work beyond the limits of serving urban areas with populations over 200,000 human endurance. That campaign continues today as our to use some of their federal assistance for operating members lobby for support of the Driver Fatigue Act. expenses during the recession. Assaults on drivers continued to increase in 2011, and We stepped up our advocacy on Capitol Hill in 2011. Canadian operators seemed to get the worst of it. Record The ATU Legislative Conference held in March saw a numbers of drivers were punched, kicked, stabbed, spit sea of ATU members storm the halls of the Capitol upon, and verbally abused in both countries. to advocate the Union’s position on labor and mass In Ottawa, ON, the Canadian Council continued to transit issues. lobby for federal legislation similar to the federal law in 2 the United States that would increase the penalties for ATU began its work in the election year of 2012, assaulting a transit worker. with an endorsement of Barack Obama for re-election as president of the United States. The Legislative There was, however, some evidence that we were Conference in March focused on capitalizing on the beginning to make some headway in Canadian courts. local political structures that the Union had already The man who viciously attacked an ATU driver in built for the 2012 presidential election campaign. Edmonton, AB, was declared a “dangerous offender.” The designation by an Alberta provincial court sent the On Capitol Hill, we successfully fought Republican criminal to jail until such time he is no longer deemed attempts to gut federal transit spending, and, in the face a risk to the public. The court’s ruling was the most of Congressional intransigence, helped secure passage severe punishment given in Canada for assaulting a bus of several extensions of SAFETEA-LU – the federal driver to date. transportation authorizations act.