Following labor’s loss in Wisconsin’s recall, the leader of the nation's largest transit union says building coalitions with riders, not organizing more drivers, is the top priority for his union’s future.  Interviewed at last month’s Netroots Nation conference, Amalgamated Transit Union President Larry Hanley said that Wisconsinites’ willingness to keep their union-busting governor in office demonstrates the urgent need to change the relationship between public workers and the American public.  “No matter how much money we put into electoral politics,” said Hanley, “if we can’t change the attitudes of people…we’ll lose.  It’s just a matter of when and how hard.”

“I think Wisconsin shows,” says Hanley, “that at this moment in time, the right wing and the billionaires who support them have been successful in convincing a significant minority of working people that their interests are tied to falling wages in the public sector.”  Hanley adds that Walker’s re-election demonstrates politicians’ success in framing unions as a “special interest,” and “saying there are working people, and then there’s organized labor.”  Hanley noted he was particularly surprised by polls showing a substantial minority of union households backing Walker.  “We have to – starting with our own members – make sure that people understand that we’re all in this together, we’re not all in this alone…it’s going to be a long process.”

ATU represents over 190,000 workers in the US and Canada.  The majority are public workers, although the majority of ATU’s contracts are with private companies like Greyhound.  A year and a half ago, ATU began shifting resources into organizing coalitions with transit riders to support public transit.  With the policy resource center Good Jobs First, ATU has held two rider organizing “boot camps” for activists and union leaders from 95 cities.  Last month, those efforts entered a new phase with the launch of Americans for Transit, a new national organization backed by ATU and GJF.  Hanley chairs Americans for Transit’s Board; GJF Executive Director Greg LeRoy is its secretary-treasurer.  They tapped Andrew Austin, the former field director of Washington State’s Transportation Choices Coalition, as the organization’s founding executive director.