Bus drivers should not deny necessary transportation to the unvehicled and underserved. That is selfish. This misguided only hurts the riders. Do you think politicians and bureaucrats take the buss?

No politicians don't ride the bus, actually I think Tim Fitzmaurice, but not most of them don't ride. Yet the people the politicians serve, capitalists and petty capitalists, depend on busses to shuttle their under paid workers to their jobs. This I'm sure made for real pressures on the politicians to get this thing settled with the drivers.

This anonymous person sounds a lot like the self-proclaimed, but nowhere else recognized, riders union "leader" R. Paul Marcelin-Sampson.

A true riders union would unite with the workers and fight for better funding and for better services. As a bus rider I am offended to have someone like Sampson pretend to be speaking for me.

The workers are fighting against cuts to their health care benefits. This is a worthy struggle that all working people should support. We are always stronger by sticking together against the government and corporations in labor disputes rather than fighting over the crumbs that fall from the table of exploitation where rich people feast.

The reality is that the U.S. government is cutting social services and healthcare rights and other benefits for workers everywhere while spending billions of dollars on war. It is the duty of unions to fight back. If we don’t we will loose everything.

The anonymous poster thinks that this is a problem limited to the Metro’s budget as is it stands under the control of some local useless functionaries that have never been friendly to workers or riders. You’d do better not to believe in the way the capitalists have divided the system up into little cantons in order to deny working people the social services and rights we deserve. It is a classic game of good cop bad cop. I don't buy it, and you shouldn't either.

The Democrats and Republicans and their capitalist masters could easily pay for the people's demands if they stop spending all of our money on war, police, bourgeois decadence, and prisons.

U.S. Out Of Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, and the Phillipines!

For the preservation of healthcare benefits for all workers without cuts! Extend current benefits to all people through single payer health care!

For the lowering of bus fares and an increase in services!

Sincerely, Steven Argue for Liberation News
lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Steve--

As a Metro bus driver myself, here in Seattle Washington, and also a transit union activist, I thank you for your defense of bus drivers and riders. It is disturbing to see a person use the mantle of a bus riders union to undermine the bus drivers demands. I've followed other bus rider unions in other cities and they do typically support drivers because they understand we are all in this together. I'd add redirect the Pentagon's budget to expanded mass transit - and yes, affordable or free. And tax the profits of the wealthy corporations to also expand public mass transit. What with global warming it is clear that we need a dramatic shift away from our single-occupancy-vehicle focused system. Moreover, as we saw in New Orleans, many people, especially the poor, don't have cars. And why should those who can't afford cars be condemned to riding a second-class system.

Thanks again for your words of support for the bus drivers.

In solidarity
Linda Averill