Just as Major League Baseball’s (MLB) All-Star Week comes to Nationals Park in Washington D.C., Maryland-based Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689, the Metro transit labor union boasting 8,000 of the system’s 12,500 workers, has threatened to strike over the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) management choosing to shift a few janitorial jobs from union labor to private contracts. ATU may be hit with a federal court judgement because of this – as they were during the week-long walkout in 1978 – but they can rest assured that coming up to bat for them and joining them on the picket line is their bought and paid for politician – Jennifer Wexton (D-Fairfax).
According to FEC filings, Wexton received two $5,000 donations from the transit union in May – yes, the same union that has authorized a non-sanctioned Metro strike that would disable and disrupt thousands of federal employees and workers in the metropolitan area.
The Washington Post calls the union “arrogant,” “over the top,” has “lost touch with the public,” and “the biggest impediment to improvement” in the D.C. area. On the contrary, Wexton calls the big labor bosses her patrons. She emphatically courts the overwhelmingly Maryland member-based union that sticks it to Virginia riders and taxpayers through the Metro’s “dysfunctional organization.”
The sheer chaos that will inevitably be caused by an illegal strike is hard to underestimate as well over half a million people ride the Metro system every day. Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights) has stated, “This action is illegal on its face, would be devastating to Northern Virginia, and must be challenged immediately,” via a press release.
The speaker has called on both Governor Ralph Northam and Attorney General Mark Herring to file a motion in federal court for the preservation of the WMATA compact to, “ensure the Northern Virginia economy does not come to a standstill because of this irresponsible move.”
Caucus Chairman Delegate Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax) says the move from the labor union is, “just ridiculous – especially this year when we gave them money to try and improve Metro,” via a statement.
The Republican leadership during the 2018 General Assembly session introduced a legislative plan to reform the Metro system without raising taxes. Virginia would invest $100 million on an annual basis in the mass transportation system without raising taxes on those in the Commonwealth, a chief concern among many.
In defiance, House Democrats proposed another one of many tax increases for Virginians to throw more money into the broken Metro system. Wexton supported the expansion of the two percent regional transient occupancy tax into a statewide “hotel tax” – originally imposed only in Northern Virginia. Luckily, the one-member Republican majority was able to vote down the massive tax increase.
House Republicans, spearheaded by Speaker Cox, Majority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah), Caucus Chairman Hugo, and Majority Whip Nick Rush (R-Floyd) have fervently stated, “We will not write a blank check to a dysfunctional organization.”
But, of course, when Wexton doesn’t get her way, she works to disrupt.
Alert readers will recall that during the budget negotiations earlier this year, Wexton was highly supportive of shutting down the federal government to score political points. Having failed at shutting down the government, she now wants to shut down the entire capital region by joining the union on the picket lines.
Wexton’s love affair with disorganized labor is par for the course as she is running on rolling back the federal tax cuts, taxing more, spending more, and benefiting off of other people’s hard-earned money.
