Apartheid in Miami: Transit Workers Challenge the System

Abstract

[Excerpt] The story that follows will show how Dade County officials and the downtown Miami business establishment attempted to bust the transit union and dismantle a vital public transportation service to Miami's minority, elderly and working-class communities. In the name of "efficiency," Miami's political and business establishment worked hand-in-hand with the Reagan administration to make minority workers and their communities pay for the mistakes of what experts say is one of the most mismanaged transit systems in the country. This is the story of how the union organized with the community to expose this mismanagement and how the union tried to address bad management practices by offering contract language which would give the union and the workforce a voice in how Dade's transit system is run.