Ode to the ATU Elected Leadership

I am approaching my fifth year of membership in the Amalgamated Transit Union. I look back and see how far I have come—and how almost all of you elected leaders are truly unworthy of the positions to which we have given you.

 

I see a consistent pattern of corruption, deep insecurity and stagnation, fed by fear and greed.

 

When I suggested that union leadership focus on listening to and helping members take action for Full-Time Jobs For All and Two-Person Crews, you said "we already tried that."

 

When I questioned the sincerity of the union leadership, you said I need to shut up and let you do your job.

 

When I reintroduced a bylaw revision that would allow PT workers get a discount for dues, you said I was "the enemy among us" and plastered posters from my satirical undercover manager hoaxes all over the Local 308 garage.

 

When I informed the membership about what you do in our membership meeting and deals you make in secret with managers, you said I was a union buster.

 

When others made fliers, posts and shared information that criticized and exposed the corruption in the union office, you blamed me for it. In fact, all of the problems you have in convincing members to go along with your mischief-making, are blamed on me. 

 

During the Pandemic's first wave, when I called you out as traitors, you told me "then you run for office."

 

When I helped organize a totally transparent organization (www.chicagotransitworker.com) with no secrets and handed you ideas from the membership to make your own, you called it "promoting false hope."

 

When I stubbornly told members I would only run for office if they nominated me, you said I have "an agenda" and am "fake."

 

When I criticized CTA management and the Mayor, you said I was going to cause us to get laid off.

 

You got so used to bullying critical thinkers and silencing opposition, that when I came on the scene with marketing prowess, multi-syllabic words and encyclopedic recitation of laws, bylaws and agreements, you got frustrated and made deals with cops and managers to intimidate those who associate with me. 

 

You couldn't buy me off. You couldn't kill me off. You couldn't write me off. You couldn't shame me into silence. In fact, as you stepped up the repression, I stepped up the unrelenting exposure of your corruption.

 

Now I terrorize you like you did to us for decades. You and your masters, the CTA management and mobster politicians, finally met a match you can't handle.

 

I have no secrets about my agenda. It's neatly contained in a book called Democracy Is Power. I don't want your stupid union position nor do I need your bloated six-digit salaries. I just want you to do your job. That is all I wanted. That is my job—as a member—to hold you accountable to us. I wanted to express myself and have my rights respected. But you denied me those rights time after time. 

 

In Truth, I am nothing but a piece of trash on a garbage heap. My only remarkable trait is I can laugh at myself and you. Failure is my life—it is how I learn and build character. I have no fear of it. I appreciate it. But you are afraid of it—that is why you fear change.

 

So many CTA workers hate you. It is reflective in the low stone-age, anti-technology elections and participation in your captive audience sessions of indoctrination. Many of them trust me more than you. So they want to see me in the official position you have abused. I don't need it. I know they don't need it. 

 

I know what the membership really needs: To believe in themselves. They are sleeping giants and someone is rattling their cages and breaking open the rusty locks on their minds.

 

You made a monster in the ATU. A boogeyman. You have made many a boogeyman here. We are multiplying rapidly. If I die or am fired, another will rise to prominence. 

 

You crossed a man that never takes NO for an answer and hates tyrants. You crossed a man who never quits until he wins and lives to die an honorable death. You crossed a man who likes to fight and see the bloodsuckers of the poor cast into a lake of fire. 

 

Every humiliation you threw at me was absorbed. Every bit of slander was embraced. You pushed. I pulled. You thought you won. But your attraction to the Truth condemns your active lies.

 

Your corruption forced the body of CTA workers to activate an immune response to attack the virus of Business Unionism. Now many others think and speak like me—awakened, not created. I had nothing to do with them except inspire something already born in them.

 

Change is coming to the ATU Chicago.

 

I am not talking about elections. 

 

I am talking about Revolution.

 

#RevolutionaryUnionism