{"id":9764,"date":"2020-06-08T21:13:36","date_gmt":"2020-06-08T21:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lavozlit.com\/?p=9764"},"modified":"2020-06-08T21:13:36","modified_gmt":"2020-06-08T21:13:36","slug":"a-chicago-bus-driver-says-he-was-retaliated-against-for-his-opposition-to-transporting-police-to-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2020\/06\/08\/a-chicago-bus-driver-says-he-was-retaliated-against-for-his-opposition-to-transporting-police-to-protests\/","title":{"rendered":"A Chicago Bus Driver Says He Was Retaliated Against for His Opposition to Transporting Police to Protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"po-hr-cn__dek\"><strong>By Sarah Lazare.<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2020\/06\/chicago-bus-driver-cta-police-transport-protesters\">Republished from Jacobin.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>A Chicago bus driver alleges in a new lawsuit that when he tried to discuss opposing the transport of police to protests with his coworkers, the Chicago Transit Authority retaliated against him. If the allegations are true, they\u2019re an attack on the First Amendment and the ability of workers to organize.<\/p>\n<section id=\"ch-0\" class=\"po-cn__intro po-wp__intro\">A Chicago bus driver is filing a lawsuit against the city\u2019s transit authority, alleging that the CTA called the police on him and slapped him with a rule-violation notice in retaliation for holding discussions with coworkers about transporting police to demonstrations against police brutality and racism. The lawsuit comes amid <a href=\"https:\/\/chicago.suntimes.com\/news\/2020\/6\/1\/21277429\/chicago-protests-george-floyd-black-lives-matter-police-misconduct-lightfoot-brown\">mounting police violence<\/a> in Chicago, where between 240 and 1,000 people <a href=\"https:\/\/nlgchicago.org\/blog\/update-on-arrests-and-charges-in-chicago-black-lives-matter-protests-joint-statement-from-nlg-chicago-mass-defense-committee-chicago-community-bond-fund\/\">have been arrested<\/a> at uprisings touched off by the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, a forty-six-year-old black man.Erek Slater, who is forty years old and has worked as a bus operator for CTA for fourteen years, is a union steward and elected executive board member of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241. According to a draft lawsuit viewed by <cite>Jacobin<\/cite>, CTA management has repeatedly and illegally disrupted Slater\u2019s attempts to hold conversations with off-duty coworkers \u201cregarding the concerns and rights of bus operators relative to orders\u201d to transport police to demonstrations and potential orders to take \u201carrested demonstrators away from communities where many of these drivers live.\u201dSlater\u2019s attorney, labor and employment lawyer Nick Kreitman, says that upon arriving at Chicago\u2019s North Park Bus Garage Friday morning, Slater was \u201ctaken out of service\u201d and given a \u201cviolation notice\u201d related to an off-duty discussion he held on May 31 about the \u201csafety, political and moral concerns of fellow bus operators.\u201d When the CTA allegedly ordered Slater removed from the premises on Friday, management \u201csubsequently called the Chicago Police Department,\u201d Kreitman says. Slater, Kreitman emphasized to <cite>Jacobin<\/cite>, \u201cis authorized to be on the premises of the North Park Bus Garage as the elected union official outside of operating a bus.\u201d<\/p>\n<aside class=\"sr-at__slot sr-at__slot--left prt-x\"><\/aside>\n<p>In a June 5 Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/erekslater\/posts\/10224937221000027?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZVIfxuIJDr2Io4sL93j-FWkWLExevMUjps_sLFSGFtBne_w_-HLQpZCYRKwaQKno9eT4DYWY-ipMpWbDGw_gxNIqzg67o7rIvB3dm9Fa6CbwkZL3smoxw-lwIKbTdl_hUg&amp;__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R\">post<\/a> detailing the incident, Slater wrote, \u201cWe must not be intimidated from exercising our hard-won democratic and constitutional rights. We must mobilize disciplined, non-violent mass actions led by respected working people and our organizations to defend our rights and stop state violence and intimidation.\u201d<br \/>\nSlater plans to file the lawsuit on Monday against the CTA. The document charges that, on May 31, Slater attempted to hold a discussion with between twenty and twenty-five off-duty coworkers at picnic tables outside CTA\u2019s North Park Bus Garage. At that time, the suit says, the workers were approached by a CTA senior manager for the bus garage who called Slater an \u201cidiot\u201d and accused him of violating CTA\u2019s ban on \u201cwildcat strikes.\u201d According to the lawsuit, the senior manager then threatened to call the police on Slater to force him from the premises.<br \/>\nThis was not the only alleged incident. On June 1, Slater says he attempted to have another conversation with eight off-duty drivers in the break room of the same site. The same senior manager allegedly entered and ordered them to halt the conversation, but several minutes later, Slater again initiated the discussion, this time with five drivers. The manager once again came into the break room, according to the draft lawsuit, and ordered Slater to stop. The manager then allegedly threatened to forcibly expel Slater from the premises.<br \/>\nAccording to Kreitman, the accusations from management don\u2019t hold water. \u201cHe was just holding a discussion, and that\u2019s protected by the First Amendment,\u201d Kreitman says. \u201cYou do have the right to refuse unsafe orders in good faith if there\u2019s serious risk of harm or injury, demand the hazard is corrected and the employer fails to do so, and there isn\u2019t enough time to go through formal channels to address the issue. Workers do have that right and are allowed to discuss that right.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cWe may have Humvees on our streets,\u201d Kreitman continued, \u201cbut that doesn\u2019t mean that the First Amendment is suspended for public employees. They have legitimate moral, political, and safety concerns about having to participate in police activities against demonstrations, and they should be able to discuss those.\u201d<br \/>\nThe CTA did not immediately return a request for comment.<br \/>\nWhile Erek Slater was not available for comment, his father, Les Slater, told <cite>Jacobin<\/cite>, \u201cThe CTA thinks their employees have no rights to discuss things, especially if they don\u2019t agree. This legal injunction is to get the CTA to back off and recognize all their workers\u2019 freedom of speech.\u201d<br \/>\nSlater\u2019s lawsuit comes amid reports that <a href=\"https:\/\/jacobinmag.com\/2020\/05\/minneapolis-bus-drivers-unions-george-floyd-protest-police\">bus drivers from<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/bv8zaw\/minneapolis-bus-drivers-refuse-to-transport-george-floyd-protesters-to-jail\">Minneapolis<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en_us\/article\/m7jed3\/nyc-bus-drivers-union-refuses-to-transport-protesters-for-the-nypd\">New York<\/a> are refusing orders to transport police and arrested demonstrators due to their ethical objection to the crackdown.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<section class=\"po-fr__bio\">\n<h1 class=\"po-fr__heading\">About the Author<\/h1>\n<p class=\"po-fr__desc\">Sarah Lazare is web editor at In These Times. She comes from a background in independent journalism for publications including the <cite>Intercept<\/cite>, the <cite>Nation<\/cite>, and <cite>Tom Dispatch<\/cite>.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Sarah Lazare. Republished from Jacobin. A Chicago bus driver alleges in a new lawsuit that when he tried to discuss opposing the transport of police to protests with his coworkers, the Chicago Transit Authority retaliated against him. If the allegations are true, they\u2019re an attack on the First Amendment and the ability of workers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13882120,"featured_media":9769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27799],"tags":[30156,30157,29271,30158,27839,1332],"class_list":["post-9764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","tag-2020-racial-justice-protests","tag-chicago-transit-authority","tag-police-brutality","tag-policing-and-repression","tag-solidarity","tag-unions"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"es","enabled_languages":["en","es"],"languages":{"en":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"es":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdQxqk-2xu","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13882120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}