TWU Local100 Endorses Marisol Alcantara for State Senate in the 31st District

TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen threw the support of the 42,000-strong union behind state Senate candidate Marisol Alcantara on Tuesday. Joined by dozens of transit workers at Local 100’s headquarters in downtown Brooklyn, Samuelsen announced Local 100’s endorsement of Alcantara for the 31st District seat being vacated by Sen. Adriano Espaillat (D-Manhattan/Bronx). The diverse district stretches from Manhattan’s Upper West Side through Washington Heights and includes Riverdale, Marble Hill and Hamilton Heights.

 “We’re here to say that Marisol Alcantara is the trade unionist in this race,” Samuelsen said. “She is trade union to the core. We welcome another ally in Albany.” Alcantara, an organizer for the New York State Nurses Association, told the gathered transit workers that she will fight for legislation blocking the city from arresting Bus Operators after accidents under a misguided Vision Zero law signed by Mayor de Blasio. She also will fight for pension parity so that newly hired transit workers enjoy the same benefits as more veteran workers.
 

Alcantara said good union transit jobs are a critical path to the middle class. “My mother is a transit worker,” she said. “My mother was able to get a pension, paid vacation and sick days. For an immigrant family, for a woman of color, getting a union job is like hitting the lottery.”

Espaillat recently won the Democratic primary in the 13th Congressional District race. “This is a lady who stands on her own two feet,” he said at the Union Hall. “I listen to her and I know that we will not always agree, because she is her own person, as she should be – because leadership is about that. Nobody understands transit better than Marisol Alcantara because her family comes from transit workers.”