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.”