‘NYET’ ME!
Radical bears striking resemblance to conductor
One of the activists who chainedopen subway exit gates last week so riders could participate in a “fare strike” bears a resemblance — some transit workers say a striking resemblance — to a subway conductor.
The hooded suspect with safety goggles was captured on a surveillance camera padlocking an exit gate in a Harlem station early Wednesday.
Some transit workers say the Occupy Wall Street protester looks like John Ferretti, 41, a No. 1 line conductor.
Ferretti admits he shares views in line with the OWS movement. He also wears safety goggles outside work — a questionable fashion statement that in itself should be criminal.
But he denies being part of the “chain gang.”
“It doesn’t look like me,” he said of the guy in the video. “The only reason I can think of why some transit workers might be confused and think it’s me is they support the action, and I’m probably the first person who comes to mind they think might do something like that.”
Ferretti said he was driving to work at the time the gate was chained at the 116th St. and Lexington Ave. station.
“It wasn’t me,” he said. “It’s not something I would do.”
Ferretti isn’t opposed to giving free rides to protest Wall Street greed and the unequal distribution of power and wealth in this country. He just doesn’t believe a “fare strike” should be done on such a small scale as what happened Wednesday when about six stations out of 468 were liberated.
“It was a publicity stunt,” he said.
Ferretti is one of the radicals among the radicals in his union— members who are Communists first, transit workers second. They are dedicated Marxists and prolific in churning out written arguments and analysis for the cause.
They are, however, a fringe of a faction of a fringe in Transport Workers Union Local 100. You could throw a party for them without having to go shopping. A handful of mugs and the four beers in the back of the fridge will do fine.
“We understand we hold a minority viewpoint,” Ferretti said. “Just because it’s a minority viewpoint doesn’t mean it doesn’t hold potential for future struggles and for creating a different world, which is what we are trying to do.”
Ferretti, of Brooklyn, is a member of the League for a Revolutionary Party. He didn’t become a conductor six years ago for the pay and benefits.
His goal wasn’t to secure a series of promotions, enter the ranks of management and buy a home in the suburbs. He and two other League members took transit jobs specifically to organize the blue-collar workforce for a Socialist revolution.
“We took jobs in transit to try and take a leadership role in the struggle of transit workers and the working class in general,” he said.
Twu local 100 was a logical choice because transit workers are critical to the city economy and the union has a history of fighting, he said. Leaders have mobilized three system wide strikes, the last being in 2005.
Ferretti worked in the admissions office at City College before the MTA hired him. One comrade joined the MTA shortly before Ferretti. Another came all the way from Mississippi about four years ago to work in the subway and try and turn the blue-collar workforce red, Ferretti said.
The fourth member of this band of revolutionaries is Eric Josefson, a transit worker for more than two decades. They have all run for Local 100 offices without great success.
As for the goggles, they’re prescription safety glasses.
“I wore them so much for work they became the most comfortable glasses I have so I wear them all over,” Ferretti said.