D.C. Metro workers call for manager's firing after special trains provided to white supremacists

The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689 wants Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld fired.

CASEY QUINLAN AUG 16, 2018, 2:15 PM

Unionized Metro workers continue to call for accountability after the transit agency appeared to provide special accommodations for white supremacists attending the Unite The Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C. last weekend. Workers gathered at a rally in D.C. on Thursday and called for Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld to be fired.

When Jason Kessler, the white supremacist who organized the rally, arrived at the Vienna, Virginia stop, police officers swarmed the station. They provided protection for Kessler and the few white supremacists who accompanied him and they boarded a car marked “Special.”

The Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 689, the largest Metro Union, is not pleased. Before the rally on Sunday, Metro officials said they wouldn’t provide special treatment for the white supremacists. Metro Board Chairman Jack Evans, who is a city council member, told WAMU that the Metro “…never considered providing private trains and will not be doing so.”

There were 30 to 40 Metro workers and members of the community at the rally on Thursday. One rally-goer, Everett, told ThinkProgress he attended the rally because he said he once lived in Arkansas, which has a history of what are known as “sundown towns” that excluded Black people.

https://thinkprogress.org/dc-metro-workers-rally-after-white-supremacists-received-special-treatment-unite-the-right-2cda62b4425a/