Transit Workers Union Targets Riders In New Campaign

From the Huffington Post:

The Amalgamated Transit Union -- the largest labor union representing transit and allied workers in the U.S. and Canada -- has at least two trends working in its favor: With gas prices rising and the economy still weak, public transit use is near its highest point in decades. Last year, Americans took 10.4 billion trips on mass transit -- including buses, trains, street cars and ferries -- a 2.3 percent increase from the previous year, according to the American Public Transportation Association, a nonprofit advocacy organization. And the people who ride buses and trains -- mostly urban, poor, or environmentally conscious -- are more likely to share the unions' preference for Democratic candidates, say advocates on both sides of the issue.

In an age of unlimited spending by super PACs -- where Republican groups have outspent their Democratic counterparts -- the Amalgamated Transit Union's strategy is part of a critical role that labor advocates plan to play between now and November. The unions say they cannot compete with Republican donors' money, but that they do have an ample supply of bodies and plan to deploy them in broader and more creative ways than they did in 2008.

The ATU, like other unions, also says that it plans to use this election as an opportunity to build public support for big labor after several years of crushing blows: attacks from conservative politicians across the Midwest, budget cuts that further diminished public sector union membership, and declining public support.

"We understand that we have a knife to our throat," said Larry Hanley, who was elected president of the ATU in 2010. "We're even thinking about selling the office furniture," he joked, and then quickly grew serious. "In past elections, on our best day, we never went beyond organizing our own members, but that's not enough now."

"What we understand completely is that the people who ride the bus have the same interests as the people who drive them," Hanley continued. "America has lost its mobility."