TWU Veterans Gather at Union Hall to Honor Service to America

It was standing room only at this year’s TWU Local 100’s Veterans Appreciation event on Thursday evening, November 13, at union headquarters in Brooklyn. TWU veterans from across the decades, joined by friends and family members, celebrated service to America in a dignified ceremony complete with an Honor Guard from Long Island City High School.

Headline speakers included Local 100 President John Samuelsen, State Sen. Martin Golden, Chair of the Civil Service & Pensions Committee, and Assemblyman Peter Abbate, Chair of the Committee on Governmental Employees.  All three criticized Gov. Cuomo’s veto of the Veteran’s Buy Back Bill, championed by Local 100 and spearheaded through the legislature by Golden and Sen. Bill Larkin in the State Senate, and Assemblywoman Amy Paulin and Abbate on the Assembly side.IB Image

The bill would have allowed veterans who served during peacetime and certain non-covered conflicts, to purchase up to three years of extra pension credit in the City or State public employee pension plans. Current legislation, passed in 2000, allows such buy-backs only for service during periods of covered conflict. IB Image

TWU Veteran’s Committee Chair, Vice President Kevin Harrington, told the gathering that, “no one enlists in the military to fight.  They enlist to serve.  A soldier is a soldier; service is service.”  He related a story about his uncle who joined the U.S. Army in 1938 to play baseball and wound up some years later in a POW camp near the Russian border.  “No one who enlists in the military knows what might happen, where they might be sent, what war might ignite,” he said.

Local 100 President John Samuelsen praised the Local 100 Veteran’s Committee, including Harrington, Kevin McCawley and Phil Caruana, saying that it has developed in the past few years into “a powerful political force.”  He said that the fight for the Veteran’s Buy Back bill is forging ahead despite the Cuomo veto. 

Sen. Golden did not reserve his criticism exclusively for Cuomo.  He also blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for a role in the Cuomo veto.  The Mayor had urged Gov. Cuomo to kill the bill because of an alleged cost of $18 million to the City of New York.  “The City wastes $18 million in a couple of hours every day just by doing or not doing something,” said Golden as he dismissed de Blasio’s fiscal objections.IB Image

Assemblyman Abbate also took issue with the actuarial assumptions that de Blasio and Cuomo produced in derailing the bill.  Abbate said that the assumptions were based on a scenario where every veteran eligible for the buy back all retired on the same day.

The Veterans Committee presented a plaque for special service to America and to TWU to Local 100 member Frank Gurrera, a machinist at the Coney Island Overhaul shop.  Frank served in the U.S. Navy Seabees in World War II, and has worked for transit for 44 years.  He turned 90 recently.  And yes, he’s still on the job.IB Image