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In Today's Daily News, Utano Blasts MTA Chairman Foye's Contract Proposal

AUGUST 27 -- Local 100 President Tony Utano responds to the MTA's latest contract proposal on the editorial page of today's Daily News. The piece, which was retweeted by the NYC Central Labor Council, puts responsbility on the MTA for not acknowledging the dedication and commitment of the transit workforce, which has been responsible for the restoration of a state of good repair and continued improvements in service statistics. Here is the text of President Utano's Op-Ed:

Transit workers know garbage when they see it. After all, we remove tons of it from the subway and bus system every day. The contract demands that MTA Chairman Pat Foye wants to impose on transit workers are garbage. They include attacking our health insurance, converting full-time jobs to part-time positions, and giving more work to expensive private contractors.

Are they out of their minds? Do they think living in New York has gotten less expensive? Do they think it’s cheaper to buy groceries, pay the rent, pay the mortgage or send your kids to college? Do people have part-time families that can be supported by part-time work? For 85 years, transit workers and Transport Workers Union Local 100 have fought to establish a decent standard of living for the men and women who move millions of people a day. We’re not going backwards. We will fight these demands together.

The MTA desperately wants riders to believe that bus and subway workers, and the contracts we negotiated with the MTA over the years, are to blame for its inability to close budget gaps. In reality, the problem has been gross mismanagement, as The New York Daily News has accurately reported many times. As the paper reported earlier this month: “Bad management caused the MTA to bust its overtime budget last year, says a consultant who shot down allegations of widespread overtime abuse in the cash-strapped agency.” As it reported last month: “MTA foul-ups led to extensive delays and budget overruns in critical subway upgrades, new controller report says….The controller’s reports said that several boneheaded moves by MTA officials were responsible for much of the delay.”

And in June: “Decades of mismanagement forced the MTA into a costly cleanup of subway drains — a multi-million dollar repair job necessary to speed trains and improve service.” Mismanagement didn’t start under Foye, but it continued under his watch. He was MTA president between August 2017 and April 2019, when he became chairman. Foye recently claimed transit workers are taking too much time off and are needlessly driving up labor costs. I don’t know how he came up with the “availability” statistics he cited without explanation at an MTA board meeting, and I don’t really trust them. I do know, however, about the conditions under which Local 100 members work. We work under live train traffic and around electrified third rails. We work in the extreme cold and extreme heat. We breathe in diesel fumes in bus depots and steel dust in subway tunnels. And we suffer for it.

We move 7.8 million riders a day. That includes people who are sick themselves, sneezing and coughing because they have some type of contagious virus. We get sick because of the environment we work in. In the last two years, nearly 2,300 bus and subway workers were hurt in on-the-job accidents in the tunnels, repair shops, rail yards, bus depots and other parts of the system. Another 550 subway conductors, bus operators, train operators, and workers in other titles, were attacked and assaulted. Nearly 280 train crewmembers were traumatized because someone jumped, fell or was pushed in front of their subway train. Transit workers were spit upon 358 times in those two years. This is all according to the Transit Authority’s own numbers.

TWU Local 100 members endure all of this while carrying an enormous responsibility. Whether we are operating a bus or a train, fixing decades-old signals and track, or maintaining train cars, the lives of millions of people are in our hands every day.  Foye is making a mistake. Transit workers are angry. They are fed up. They are sick and tired of being assaulted on the job for wearing the MTA uniform. And they are disgusted at the MTA for dragging their reputations through the mud. It’s a shameful and dangerous attempt to turn riders against workers. You think you hate the MTA? You should try working for it.

You can read the MTA's contract demands here.

You can read the Union's contract demands here.

Executive Board Unanimously Rejects MTA Contract Demands

IB ImageAUGUST 19 -- The TWU Local 100 Executive Board today unanimously passed a motion rejecting a series of contract demands from the MTA.
 
"If the MTA's goal was to enrage every transit worker in the city then they've done it," TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano said. "We will do everything in our power to fight these insulting contract demands. Transit workers have worked too hard to improve service - and this union has worked too hard over decades to establish a decent standard of living for our members - to now go backwards."
 
Click here for the full resolution passed by your Executive Board. Click here for the flyer on the Union's position.

Union to Honor Transit 9/11 Workers on Sept 5

Over 3,000 transit workers took part in the rescue and recovery effort on and after 9/11/2001. When the towers went down, tons of rocks and rubble had to be removed so that rescue crews could get to underground spaces where people people might have survived. In the first days, transit provided the heavy equipment to do that job. We also used lo-boys and other rigs to move abandoned cars, cleaned and inspected subway stations in the area, and brought hundreds of rescue personnel to the scene on city buses -- along with rescuing many who were trapped by the cloud of debris. But the story of what transit workers did at 9/11 has not gotten the recognition it deserves. For that reason, we hold our annual commemoration of 9/11 and transit's role in the rescue and recovery effort. Join your fellow TWU Local 100 brothers and sisters on Thursday, September 5th at the Union Hall for a 5pm event. Union members who participated in rescue and recovery are entitled to receive a commemorative pin. To receive the pin, we ask that you fill out an affidavit which will be notarized at the event, attesting to your service. Those who have been injured and have verified Victim's Compensation Fund claims are entitled to receive our official medal. For more information about the pins and medals, click here.

Frank Gurrera Recounts a Life Well-Lived

Frank Gurrera, at 94, is the oldest Local 100 member still punching the clock five days a week at the Coney Island Overhaul Shop.  He has been a machinist with NYCT for 49 years, most of them spent working at CIOH.

Frank recently sat down with a historian from the Coney Island History Project for an interview about his life as a transit worker, a veteran of World War II, and as a life-long resident of Brooklyn.

Frank’s poignant life-story of modest heroism, professional accomplishments, and steadfast belief in working in a union shop is a must listen:
http://www.coneyislandhistory.org/oral-history-archive/frank-gurrera

Utano Reacts to Bill that Would Create Felony for Attacking Police with Water

JULY 31 -- TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano released the following statement regarding proposed legislation that would make it a felony to attack police officers with water.

"No disrespect to police officers, but if you are going to make dousing a police officer with water a felony then you should also make spitting on a transit worker, or police officer, a felony. Bus and subway workers were spit at more than 150 times last year. In the subways alone, 13 were spit at this month (July). There is nothing more disgusting or vile than this type of abuse that transit workers are subjected to for just wearing the MTA uniform. Spitting is now just considered harassment, a violation, under the law. It’s offensively weak and needs to change."

Assemblyman Mike LiPetri of Long Island and Assemblyman Michael Reilly of Staten Island have announced plans to introduce legislation making it a felony to douse police officers with water after videos emerged of police officers getting soaked in several neighborhoods. Today's coverage of the proposed bill in the Daily News included President Utano's statement.

 

Eric Boyo, Train Operator, Lauded for Saving a Woman's Life

JULY 31 -- Train Operator Eric Boyo – and by extension all transit workers – received some well-deserved positive press on a grand scale this week. Television reporters from ABC, CBS, NBC, NY1 and WPIX11 – along with print reporters from The New York Daily News and AMNY – attended a press conference that Local 100 convened on Tuesday to showcase Boyo for saving a woman who jumped to the G-train tracks late Monday afternoon.

Boyo, who was approaching the Fulton St. station at about 37 miles per hour, alertly observed a rider on the platform urgently waving at him. He started to slow down and then activated the emergency brakes when he saw the woman on the tracks in front of him. The woman had jumped to the tracks moments earlier in an apparent suicide attempt, authorities said. Boyo’s  train came to halt approximately 75 to 100 feet from the woman, he told reporters. He then calmly helped her up to the platform with assistance from riders.

“My biggest concern was, ‘Is this person OK?’ ” Boyo told the flock of reporters. Asked if he considered himself a hero, Boyo humbly said, “We’re just doing our jobs…this is what we do.”

RTO Vice President Eric Loegel and Train Operators Chairman Zachary Arcidiacono, however, proudly and correctly declared Boyo a hero. “I want to commend Train Operator Boyo for his heroic acts,” Loegel said. “His professionalism, diligence and compassion saved a woman’s life. While something like this may seem remarkable, for a man like Eric and for our transit workers as a whole, like he said, this is what we do. These sorts of things are not always noticed, but this is reflective of the kind of person that he is and the kind of workforce we have as New York City transit workers. Arcidiacono said: “His alertness, his quick reaction time, his professionalism, his calm demeanor, is what our Train Operators and train crews bring to the job every day.”

Utano Tells MTA Board Cuts Can't Come from TWU Workforce

JULY 24 -- TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano, in remarks to the MTA Board of Directors, cautioned the Board that projected cuts can't come from the TWU represented workforce without 'tremendous consequences.' He also brought attention to a spate of recent assaults on transit workers and to our members' roles in successfully navigating the massive power outage that hit Manhattan along with a computer crash that stalled subway service.

Utano, RTO VP Loegel Blast MTA Chairman Foye

JULY 26 -- TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano and RTO Vice President Eric Loegel are blasting MTA Chairman Pat Foye for again putting transit workers in a negative light. At the MTA board meeting Wednesday, Foye blamed transit workers for a “low level of availability.”  In a statement sent to reporters and newspaper editorial pages, President Utano said:

"MTA Chairman Pat Foye should spend less time grandstanding for the press and more time negotiating a contract for the men and women who do all the work around here. I’m offended and angry that he would have the nerve to say transit workers are taking too much time off, suggesting once again that transit workers are ripping off the system. The chairman is either clueless or callous. Maybe both. Either way, the only thing he is succeeding at doing is pissing off the entire workforce. If Foye wants to improve worker availability, he should declare a Zero Tolerance approach to worker assaults and lay out a comprehensive multi-faceted plan, once and for all, to stop the onslaught of spitting, punching and other abuse that comes our way for wearing the MTA uniform.  Adding extra cops was a good first step, but more needs to be done. No one can do his or her job from the emergency room.

"If Foye really wants to improve employee availability, he should also tell his managers to stop taking our members out of service for petty or bogus infractions. They put workers out on the street and then complain they aren’t working. You can’t make this stuff up."

RTO V.P. Loegel said: "I firmly reject Chairman Foye’s characterization that our contract gives our members “too much” time off. All workers, regardless of occupation, deserve a healthy work-life balance. We do dirty, dangerous, safety-sensitive jobs and need sufficient time to recover. We have to contend with poor air quality, fumes, biological waste, physical hazards, and rampant assaults. Our work schedules are often grueling with short breaks, missed lunches, and long hours. While discipline is improving, Transit is still quick to give workers days in the street for nonsense. The medical department is also quick to restrict employees from work, for ailments that are otherwise under control. The MTA needs to address the systemic problems impacting the membership. Portraying transit workers as spoiled or lazy is not only insulting and offensive— it’s just plain false."

Utano, on 1010 WINS, Calls on the City to Do More to Protect Transit Workers

TWU Mourns Ursula Levelt, Retired Director of the Local 100 Legal Department

TWU Local 100 sadly reports the passing of long-time in-house attorney and labor activist, Ursula Levelt.  She died on July 7, 2019 of cancer in her beloved Amsterdam, the Netherlands.  She had moved back there recently to spend her final days in the place of her birth.  She was 60 years old. Her husband, Bill, informed the union of her death, saying: “Ursula was dedicated to the labor movement and to TWU Local 100.  She remembered the many friends and comrades there that she had worked with and fought for over the many years.”

Ursula Levelt was born in Amsterdam on April 14, 1959.  She immigrated to the U.S. and attended The New School in New York, earning a BA in 1997.  She then attended CUNY Law School, graduating in 2000. Her first job as an attorney was with the firm headed by Arthur Schwartz in 2001, then General Counsel to Local 100.

According to Schwartz, Ursula skillfully defended Local 100 members in hundreds of disciplinary arbitrations.  In 2005, Local 100 established its own Legal Department and Ursula was among the first attorneys hired.  She continued to focus on disciplinary arbitrations.  She became an expert on Medical Appeals, and fought hard for the rights of Local 100 members with disabilities.  She handled many contractual arbitrations on medical issues. In 2011 Ursula became the Legal Director of Local 100, a position she served in until her retirement in 2016. Although she planned to move with her husband to Hawaii, Governor Cuomo offered her an appointment to the Workers Compensation Board as a Commissioner, so she stayed at her home in Newburgh, NY. She resigned from the Board in June after her diagnosis of terminal cancer.

Local 100 President Tony Utano said: “Ursula was a wonderful person and a dedicated fighter for the workers. We are all saddened to learn of her passing.  She made TWU a stronger union with her professionalism and dedication. We offer our deepest condolences to her family.”

Arthur Schwartz said of his long-time colleague: “I will always remember Ursula as a person with endless energy, with a smile on her face even in difficult times. She was smart, principled, easy to get along with, and a fierce fighter for what she believed in. And she was a good friend. Her death is a real loss for the Labor Movement and progressive politics.”

Ursula was active throughout her legal career in the National Lawyers Guild, a 6o year old progressive lawyers organization, building its labor law program, and writing columns in various publications. She was also a roving ambassador for CUNY Law School. She is survived by her husband and son.

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