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Executive Board Names Shirley Martin New CED Vice President

JULY 31 -- The TWU Local 100 Executive Board today unanimously named veteran CED officer Shirley Martin as Vice President of Car Equipment.  She will fill out the unexpired term of Vice President Nelson Rivera, who was elevated to Administrative Vice President last March.

Rivera introduced the motion on Martin at the monthly Executive Board meeting at Union Headquarters.  It was seconded by Vice President Tony Utano.

After the vote, Martin was asked to join the meeting and was sworn into office by Local 100 and International President John Samuelsen to the enthusiastic applause of the Board.  She is the first woman to serve as Vice President from CED.

Shirley is a 25-year veteran of New York City Transit’s Car Equipment Department.  Hired as a Car Maintainer B, a machinist title, she was the first woman to operate the wheel grinding machine at Coney Island Overhaul, that shapes subway car wheels into true circles.

In her native Jamaica, Martin was also the first woman to graduate from Kingston Technical High School as a Machinist, then going to work – also in a first – for the Bauxite Company, an industrial firm that extracted the valuable mineral in aluminum production.  She was also the the first woman union rep of Jamaica’s National Workers Union (NWU) at the Bauxite Company.

Martin’s TWU Local 100 union career includes positions as Shop Steward, Division Vice Chair for Coney Island Overhaul Shop, Recording Secretary for the Division, Division Chair, and Executive Board Member.

Her objectives for her new assignment: “Get back into the field, visit the different shops, talk to our terminal cleaners, and address safety issues.”

Ribbon Cutting Opens TWU Housing Counseling Center in the Bronx

JUNE 8 – The Bronx – TWU Local 100 Secretary-Treasurer Earl Phillips cut the ribbon to open the union’s newest facility – a homeowner and homebuying Counseling Center at 2475 Westchester Avenue. Local 100 members and community residents can access the Center’s services, including obtaining grants for first-time home-owners, financial counseling to help union members qualify to purchase homes, improve credit ratings or refinance high interest mortgages, and foreclosure prevention counseling.

Under the direction of Raiza Martinez, a veteran homeownership specialist with Neighborhood Housing Services, the Center aims to help TWU members and other Bronx working families to achieve the American dream.

Standing with Secretary Treasurer Phillips at the ceremony were other top Local 100 leaders, including Administrative Vice President Nelson Rivera, Tony Utano, VP of Maintenance of Way, and RTO Vice President Kia Phua. The counseling center was thronged with community residents, who talked to lenders from major banks and attended a class led by NHS board member Deborah Johnson educating them about paths to home ownership.

One interested walk-in to the event was Lamont Murray, a Bridge Painter whose mother, Stephanie Wilson, is a Bus Operator out of the West Farms Depot. He lives just two blocks from the counseling center and visited with his wife, Tibet, and his daughter, Monet.

NHS offers grants of up to $25,000 for first-time home buyers who purchase a home for up to $424,000. For more information, call the counseling center at 718-502-3300.

Our Upward Advancement Program Graduates 20 to Join Structure Division

JUNE 8 -- The Apex Technical School was the scene of a triumphant graduation for 20 TWU Local 100 members -- Cleaners and Traffic Checkers, who are now moving up to apprentice positions within Maintenance of Way. Each graduate completed a 900 hour course, 150 hours for each trade learned. They will join Structure Division, under Departmental Vice President Tony Utano, as apprentices, with the opportunity to proceed to full tenure in civil service titles after passing exams. This is the result of a push by the TWU to fund the training of our members in lower paid titles to get the chance for advancement into higher paid work within the union. We partnered with New York City Transit, which jointly administers the Training and Upgrading Fund. More classes of apprentices will follow.

TWU, NYC Trade Unions Back Gov. Cuomo’s Fightback Against Trump's Attacks on Infrastructure Funding

JUNE 6 -- New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo addressed an energetic union-dominated crowd in a large meeting hall of the Jacob Davits Center, vowing to fight Trump Administration policies  that threaten infrastructure funding, women’s rights, and climate change initiatives. Naming New York State Congressmen John Faso of the Hudson Valley, and Chris Collins of Buffalo, the Governor said he was charging them with “defrauding voters. They said they would help the middle class, they’re doing the exact opposite. They’re political pawns to the puppet masters in Washington.”

Dozens of TWU Local 100 members including Secretary-Treasurer Earl Phillips, MOW VP Tony Utano, and MaBSTOA VP Richie Davis were in the packed room as the Governor laced into the Trump administration and Republican officeholders. He contrasted their defunding plans with New York State’s positive agenda for working people. “If you want to help the middle class and working families,” he said, “start by creating jobs with a record investment in infrastructure, putting people to work, and using the men and women of organized labor to do it.” Other unions waving signs and placards with the hashtag #fightback were hotel and building trades unions, IBEW Local 3, the RWDSU, and the CWA.

“You help the middle class by passing paid family leave and by raising the minimum wage,” Cuomo added. “You protect the people in the ACA because health care is a human right. Also [you help] by protecting our planet and our environment; and understanding that growing the economy is not the enemy of protecting the environment; it is the ally of of protecting the environment.” He also spoke of the vital importance of protecting workers’ right to organize and said that, now that the Trump administration has pulled out of the Paris accord on climate change, that New York State would form a coalition of states pledged to stay in the Paris accord.