A Call To Action In The Greater Boston Area-Say NO to MBTA Fare Hikes and Service Cuts!

A Call To Action In The Greater Boston Area-Say NO to MBTA Fare Hikes and Service Cuts!

No MBTA Layoffs! Help Stop T Fare Hikes and Service Cuts

Riders, Unions, Community Groups:Build a Mass Movement to
Stop Attacks on our Living Standards!

Tax the Corporations, Private Universities and the super-Rich for more revenue to Expand Service!

The MBTA board states that 30% of its yearly budget goes to debt servicing. This debt was created by Massachusetts during the Big Dig when the MBTA was legally mandated to upgrade stations and was given no Big Dig money to do it, instead being forced into massive debt.

Then in 2000, the State Legislature stopped funding the MBTA directly from the State budget, instead relying on fare increases and a portion of the sales tax - both are taxes on the working people who use public transit!

Now the MBTA board wants to eliminate bus routes, eliminate weekend service for the commuter rail, Mattapan line and E-line, eliminate The Ride (a service that many elderly and disabled people need to go about their daily routine), make the subway more dangerous by going to one conductor per train instead of two, and, in this terrible economy, eliminate over 500 good union jobs!

These cuts will hurt all working people. We should not be made to pay for the greed and short-sightedness of the corporate-dominated MBTA Board and State Legislature. Corporations and private universities could not exist without public transportation bringing their workforces to and from work on time every day, including weekends. Many corporations already pay nothing in taxes. The big universities, including Harvard, the richest university in the world, are "non-profits" and pay no taxes. The universities, who could not operate without T service, should drastically increase "in kind" payments in lieu of taxes. This would create added revenue that could expand T service and lower fares.

In order to defeat the fare hikes and service cuts, we will need to build a movement that reaches out into all affected communities. We need to do "Mic Checks" on morning and evening commutes - on the subway, commuter rail, and buses. We should engage with the MBTA unions and ask them to publicly support their jobs, wages, health care and pensions in solidarity with T riders and other unions. We need more good jobs for our communities. Union members who rely on the T to get to work should bring this movement to their union meetings and co-workers because T fare hike and service cuts mean a cut in disposable income, and hurt all union members. We should reach out to elderly communities who would have to pay the largest percentage fare increases.

Socialist Alternative calls for the building of an organized mass day of non-payment which would put massive pressure on the unelected MBTA board and Beacon Hill to consider other options such as use of the State's "Rainy Day Fund," taxing the corporations and private universities, bringing T funding back into the State budget and other alternatives that would not further erode the T and our living standards.
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We Say:
• No Fare Hike, No Service Cuts, No
MBTA Layoffs!

• For an extension of MBTA hours and
services to create more union, living
wage jobs!

• Fund public transportation by taxing the
big corporations and rich private
universities.-

• Fund the contracts of the union MBTA
workers, our communities need more
jobs, not less.

• Organize mass demonstrations and
occupations of our public transit as part
of a movement that can stop the fare-
hikes.

• Set elections for the MBTA board within
a month. All positions should be elected
and subject to recall.

• Repeal the "Forward Funding'' law!
Bring back direct funding for the MBTA
by putting T spending back into the
regular State budget as it was before
2000.

Contact: boston.@SocialistAltcrnattve.org 774-454-9060 - "Boston Socialist Alternative" on Facebook

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