Statement from TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen on President Trump’s Executive Order on Immigration

On every level, I am descended from immigrants and refugees.  The Transport Workers Union was built by immigrants and refugees.  So was NY’s subway system. The founder of our great union, Michael J. Quill, fled Ireland in the 1920’s, the victim of political and religious persecution.  The Irish men and women who formed the backbone of my union in its earliest days came to the US to escape these same forms of discrimination.  They came for the economic opportunity they were denied in Ireland.  My granny came from Derry City in the north of Ireland. She was part of the great successive waves of immigration to the US from Ireland. She came seeking freedom and an opportunity to raise a family in peace. I would be dishonoring her memory, and the memory of the founders of the TWU, if I did not speak out against the inhumane and discriminatory Executive Order on immigration signed by President Trump last week.

The story of the TWU is intertwined with the story of immigration.  In its earliest days, immigrants from Ireland, Italy, England and Germany provided the bulk of our members and leaders.  As the face of immigration has changed, so has the TWU.  Chapters of our story were written by Black workers who migrated from the US South to escape persecution and violence.  New chapters are being written by members and officers from the Caribbean, Bangladesh, countries of the former Soviet Union, Nigeria and dozens of other nations.  Like our founders, and all of my grandparents, they are coming for economic opportunity and to be free from religious and political persecution.  They are welcome in the TWU.

I am not someone who always wears his religious faith on his sleeve, although anyone close to me recognizes how my Irish Catholic upbringing and adult Christian faith impact my life and the decisions I make every day.  They help guide me as a father, a husband, a worker, a citizen and a union president. These beliefs have combined with my sense of personal and institutional history to lead me to speak out against barring refugees from entering the US, against giving a preference to members of one faith over another, and against denying sanctuary to people in desperate need of it. President Trump’s order is in opposition to traditional Christian values and teachings.

Personally, organizationally, and spiritually, I am the descendant of immigrants and refugees.  I am proud to be such.  I stand with my Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and non-believing sisters and brothers against efforts to demonize every Muslim as a potential terrorist.  I stand with all those calling for a fair and humane immigration policy that provides welcome and comfort to the victims of war and persecution. This is a real American response, the correct response. And it's the reason my granny was welcomed with open arms when she sought refuge from the persecution against Catholics in the north of Ireland all those years ago.

Questions & Answers on the Contract

Answers to the most frequently asked questions about the new TWU Local 100 contract are available at the link below.

Questions & Answers On Our Contract

Answers to the most frequently asked questions about the new TWU Local 100 contract

Also available: a PDF for printing.

Executive Board Endorses Tentative Contract

A Message from TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen

The Local 100 Executive Board has overwhelmingly (37-6) endorsed the union's tentative agreement with the MTA covering TA, MABSTOA and MTA Bus Members.  We met earlier today at the union hall and had a substantive discussion on the contract terms.  Ratification ballots will be going out in the mail as soon as possible, and will include full details on all contractual and departmental gains.

The agreement includes tremendous economic value in terms of wages that easily outstrips inflation, and includes other gains that will boost our earning power well beyond the percentage increases. We have protected our health benefits with no added out of pocket costs, and we won substantial new money for our dental plan that will, among other things, extend coverage to our dependents to age 26. As important, this is a concession-free contract, a major accomplishment in this age of public sector bargaining.

I urge you to vote YES on this contract so that we can all begin enjoying its many benefits.

Click here to see our flyer summarizing the contract provisions.

TWU Founder Mike Quill with Dr. King and former Local 100 President Matty Guinan at our 1961 Convention

TWU Local 100 Honors Dr. King

Summer Childcare Vouchers Now Open to Union Members

Summer and Fall childcare slots are now available to union members employed by NYCT and MaBSTOA. Click here for program details and requirements. Applications are considered on a first come, first served basis. Members must be in good standing to apply.

TWU Working Women Bring Toys to Homeless Families

Content from TWU Working Women Bring Toys to Homeless Families

This holiday season was marked by hope and cheer brought to homeless families by our own Working Women's Committee. In December, committee members brought toys to families from shelters in Brownsville, and also distributed gifts to needy families within the transit system. We were joined in Brownsville by Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, a great friend to our union.

This holiday season was marked by hope and cheer brought to homeless families by our own Working Women's Committee. In December, committee members brought toys to families from shelters in Brownsville, and also distributed gifts to needy families within the transit system. We were joined in Brownsville by Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, a great friend to our union. Enjoy the show

A New Year’s Greeting from Local 100 President John Samuelsen

New Year’s Eve is always a big night for transit workers. We bring hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers to Times Square for the biggest New Year’s celebration in the world. And then when it’s all over, we bring them back home safe and sound to get ready for 2017.

New Year’s Eve has also provided some of the most important moments in TWU history. From the 1940’s until the early 1980’s, the Local 100 contract traditionally expired at midnight on New Year’s Eve. New York will never forget the New Year in 1966 when transit workers hit the picket lines in the first city-wide bus and subway strike in New York City history.

We are just two weeks away from the expiration of our current agreement on January 15, 2017 and just one week away from our Mass Membership Meeting on Saturday January 7, 2017 at the Madison Square Garden Theater. At our mass rally outside 2 Broadway on Nov. 15th, thousands of transit workers served notice on the MTA that we are ready to do whatever is necessary to win a fair contract. Our Contract with the MTA Expires on January 15, 2017.

The level of membership engagement in this contract campaign has been outstanding beginning with our big rally at 2 Broadway on November 15, 2016 and again with our action at the MTA Board meeting on Dec. 14, 2016. Let’s keep the energy building as we push toward January 15.

If you are working on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day, the City, the MTA and your union owe you a great debt of gratitude. If you are lucky enough to have off, enjoy this time with your family and friends.

On behalf of the Local 100 leadership team, I wish the entire Local 100 family in all our Divisions across the City, Westchester, Jersey City, Boston, Chicago and Washington, DC a Happy New Year.

John Samuelsen,
President
TWU Local 100

Contract Fight Update at Mass Membership Meeting in Madison Square Garden on January 7 | TWU Local 100

At our mass rally outside 2 Broadway on Nov. 15th, thousands of transit workers served notice on the MTA that we are ready to do whatever is necessary to win a fair contract. Our Contract with the MTA Expires on January 15, 2017.

MTA Presents Departmental Demands

• The MTA wants to reduce contractual  payments for reporting time, wash-up time, travel time. 
• They want to limit our members’ control over their work schedules.  They are attempting to do this through limiting the number of picks, eliminating shape-up, eliminating weekly bids, extending or creating lock-ins, and reducing the penalties they would have to pay for changing someone’s tour or hours on short notice.
• There are MTA demands to broad-band our work, such as having Cleaners do some light maintenance work.

Revamped Union Apprenticeship Program Up and Running

TWU Local 100 has re-invigorated our apprenticeship program, designed to give career advancement opportunities to our lowest-paid titles – traffic checker and CTA. In a ribbon cutting at the Apex Technical School on December 5th, President Samuelsen joined top officers, TUF Director Charles Jenkins, and the President of Apex to announce that 20 newly minted students – all union members – are moving up the career ladder.

Selected from a wide pool of applicants, these men and women will be paid their transit salaries as they progress through a six month course at Apex to learn the trades of masonry, carpentry and plumbing. After graduation, they will enter a three-year apprenticeship program within Maintenance of Way, giving them the opportunity to enjoy better earnings and a better life.

The new “Upward Advancement Program” represents a fulfillment of an earlier promise to create an internal career ladder that requires budgeted jobs, for the first time ever. The original program was sidelined by Jay Walder during the MTA financial cuts in 2010, and until now there was not a contractual requirement for permanent budgeted jobs in our apprenticeship program. The next Upward Advancement Program will be selected next year. The application period will announced. For more information please inquire at the Training and Upgrading Fund (TUF) at 718-780-8700.

Video: TWU Contract Fight Demonstration at MTA Board

TWU takes action at the MTA Board Meeting

With one month go to before contract expiration, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen addresses the MTA Board of Directors. Also speaking are rank and file transit workers, and Harry Lombardo, President of the TWU of America.

Dramatic Showing at MTA Board Meeting Underscores Union’s Demand for “Fair and Equitable” Wage Increases

Content from MTA Board Meeting Action

TWU Local 100 brought its campaign for a fair contract in dramatic fashion to the MTA’s December Board meeting today (Dec. 14, 2016). With a little more than a month left before expiration of the union’s contracts for TA/OA and MTA Bus members, the Local’s top leadership and more than 250 rank-and-file members packed the MTA Board’s meeting room to capacity, with an even larger overflow crowd in the lobby of MTA headquarters at 2 Broadway.

Many members carried intense poster sized images of co-workers who were beaten and slashed on the job into the Board meeting and held them high so Board members would see the kind of daily pressures and dangers facing transit workers. Members also produced a TWU version of the Union Square Subway Therapy Wall (where New Yorkers stuck thousands of post-its to express their post election feelings) by taping letter-sized “post-its” on the lobby wall at 2 Broadway.  The “post-its” contract demands included messages like, COLA’s Don’t Cut It, Don’t Touch My Health Benefits, Improve Our Longevity, and many more.

The Local 100 action was bolstered by a powerful show of national TWU solidarity, as TWU International President Harry Lombardo, the entire International Transit Division staff, and numerous officers from other TWU Locals in the the tri-state region stood side-by-side with Local 100 President John Samuelsen, Secretary Treasurer Earl Phillips, Recording Secretary LaTonya Crisp-Sauray, Vice Presidents Tony Utano, Pete Rosconi, JP Patafio, Kia Phua, Nelson Rivera and Richard Davis, and numerous Division officers.

Local 100 Ramps Up Contract Fight with Television Ads

TWU Local 100 today ramped up its campaign for a fair contract with a powerful new advertisement running on television and being distributed widely on social media. The 30-second piece features photos of transit workers doing a range of duties to ensure New Yorkers get to their jobs, homes and other destinations safely – 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“You’ve heard ‘it’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it,’ ” the video’s narrator states. “Well, that somebody is the Transport Workers Union here in New York City. Whether it’s blizzard, blackout or bomb scare, they get out and do their jobs so you can get to yours. Still, every 36 hours a transit worker is assaulted on the job, and chances are pretty good while you’re rushing to work a transit worker is receiving medical attention. They deserve a fair increase for their dedication to the dangerous work they do.”

The video also features still photographs of transit workers who were brutally assaulted while serving the riding public – including photos the MTA refused to post in its system, making the bogus claim that workers demanding raises is “political.” The television ad is the latest “six-figure” installment in Local 100’s multi-pronged campaign to secure raises greater than the 2% budgeted by the MTA.

“We want the public to know that we are proud of the service we provide, but also that these are not easy jobs,” TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said. “They are physically and mentally stressful. They are dirty and dangerous. Too-often, they are straight-up deadly. Transit workers, and their families, deserve for this reality to be recognized in their paychecks. We are turning up the heat, and will continue to escalate our fight, until that happens.”

Last week, 10 privately-owned buses wrapped with an ad featuring transit workers who were brutally beaten while serving the riding public began looping through Manhattan – passing MTA headquarters dozens of times a day. The wrapped-buses mimic the ad the MTA rejected for its bus and subway system. TWU Local 100 has slapped the MTA with a federal lawsuit for violating the First Amendment and the rock-solid American right to free speech. Local 100 also is running radio ads in the NYC area.

The Tragedy of Danny Boggs

BY PETE DONOHUE -- A weeping widow and her three children - just 13, 9, and 5 years old - walked slowly behind the coffin as it was being guided down the aisle of a small church. They were wracked with grief. They were in shock, stunned and exhausted. Their eyes were fixed forward, almost riveted, as if they were imagining how their lives would unfold without the man who had been the center of their world. That scene - from the funeral of Trackworker Danny Boggs in 2007– came to mind again earlier this month upon hearing that the surviving members of Boggs’ family were in a Manhattan courtroom.

More than nine years after a subway train struck Danny Boggs on an express track at the Columbus Circle station, the wrongful death lawsuit filed by his widow, Bernadette, had finally advanced to trial. Danny Boggs, 41, was setting up flagging for a construction project when he was killed. A General Order was supposed to keep trains off that express track. But MTA supervision delayed implementation - and then failed to communicate the delay to Boggs, an MTA investigation found. A dispatcher sent a train right into what Boggs must have thought was a safe work zone. He stepped from a narrow “clear-up” area directly into the train’s path. It’s a damning series of facts. Unfortunately, the civil court jury wasn’t allowed to consider any of them. 

Under state law, employees and family members who are eligible for Workers Compensation payments after injury or death can’t sue the employer. That includes MTA workers and their families. Bernadette Boggs’ lawyer took another approach. He sued New York City. NYC technically owns the land beneath the MTA subway system and as landlord should be held liable, the lawyer claimed. NYC failed to ensure there was a safe work environment for Boggs, he claimed. NYC, however, doesn’t have anything to do with subway operations, and lawyers pursuing such wrongful death lawsuits legally are forced to narrow their arguments against the city to one issue: lighting. The jury voted 5-1 that the lighting was substandard - but wasn’t a primary cause of Boggs’ death.

Boggs grew up in the city but moved as an adult to the town Brewster in rural Putnam County. It’s easier to raise a family up there on a Track Worker’s pay. I attended his funeral in Brewster as a member of the press. I was the transit reporter for the New York Daily News at the time. Before I started the transit beat, I suspect I was like most subway riders, including the jurors in the civil court trial. I didn’t know about the all the work happening behind the scenes to maintain and operate a subway system that carries millions of daily riders. I didn’t realize how dangerous that work is and how often it takes place with the threat of live train traffic and the electrified third rail. I didn’t ponder the possibility that a transit worker reporting for the night shift tonight might not make it home to his family tomorrow.

The Boggs’ lawsuit wasn’t successful in that it didn’t result in financial damages but hopefully it increased, even just by the smallest margins, the public’s understanding of what it means to be a transit worker.

We Sue the MTA Over Free Speech Rights

TWU Local 100 on Sunday filed a federal lawsuit against the MTA for rejecting bus and subway ads highlighting how frequently transit workers are assaulted. The MTA’s refusal to sell Local 100 advertising space in the transit system violates the right of free speech guaranteed under the First Amendment, the lawsuit states. The ads are part of Local 100’s campaign to secure raises for the 38,000 men and women who operate and maintain the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s bus and subway system.

“We want the public to have a better understanding of what it’s like to be a transit worker,” TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said. “We move over 8 million rides each day, providing this vital service to New Yorkers, but we pay a heavy price in blood.”

The rejected ad depicts four transit workers who were assaulted on duty, including a pummeled Bus Operator in a neck brace and Bus Operator with a bloodied face. “Every 36 hours, a transit worker is assaulted on the job,” the advertisement states. “We deserve a wage increase for our sacrifices.” The contract between the MTA and Local 100 expires Jan. 15. Approximately 250 bus and subway workers are assaulted a year, according to the MTA’s own data.

The authority rejected the ad in November, claiming its content was not permitted under a policy the MTA board adopted in April 2015. That policy – which has never fully been challenged in court - prohibits ads, which “express a political message, including …an opinion, position or view point regarding disputed economic, political, …or social issues…” Local 100 strongly disagrees that a poster about worker assaulted on duty, and the desire for better wages, is political in nature. Regardless, the subway is clearly a public forum where political content is protected by the U.S. Constitution. The MTA said as much in the weeks following the election of President-elect Donald Trump. It allowed hundreds, if not thousands, of riders to post political opinions and messages on the walls of the Union Square subway complex, including calls to abolish the Electoral College and ban ‘ free prison labor.’  The postings also including messages urging riders to take political action and contact their elected representatives in government.

MTA Compelled to Make Track Safety Rule Changes

Under intense union pressure, the MTA has been compelled to make unprecedented track-safety rule changes to prevent another tragedy like the line-of- duty death of subway Construction Flagger Louis Gray Jr. on Nov. 3, 2016.

Gray was on a curved track setting up yellow warning lights for a construction project that was about to get underway when a G train came around the bend and struck him. Gray’s co-workers, Jeffrey Fleming, was seriously injured but survived. The tragedy exposed serious, life-threatening flaws in the MTA’s safety protocols.  The G-train operator had no idea that Gray and Fleming were up ahead when he left the nearest station. He couldn’t stop in time when he came upon the two men on the tracks between Fort Hamilton Parkway and Church Avenue stations.

The MTA balked at TWU’s demands for new safety measures, so the union forced the dispute into emergency arbitration. The MTA has now agreed to suspend train traffic when flaggers are setting yellow warning lights out in advance of a construction project on curves with limited visibility and other extremely dangerous areas. (sections of track where there are no safety niches for a transit worker to quickly find refuge should a train be coming) “This is a big win for the safety of New York City transit workers,” Local 100 President John Samuelsen said. “Past efforts to get the company to even slow the trains down were extremely difficult. Now, the trains must not only slow down but completely suspend service and this is unprecedented.” Flagging lights are set up to warn approaching trains that workers may be on the tracks ahead and to proceed with extreme caution.

After Gray’s death, the MTA issued a bulletin with regulation changes that were too weak and amounted to nothing more than “nibbling around the edges,” Samuelsen said. Local 100 took the matter to emergency arbitration. After an all-day hearing on Friday Dec. 2^nd,  both sides, along with the arbitrator, signed a legal document adopting the new protocols halting trains in certain circumstances. “It’s a travesty that another transit worker lost his life on the job,” Samuelsen said. It’s also a travesty that this matter had to go to arbitration. The MTA should have done the right thing in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy.” The NTSB, which is investigating the accident, approved of the new protocols Tuesday. The MTA has scheduled a 24-hour “safety stand down” starting at 10 p.m. Wednesday, December 7th. During that time, all non-emergency track work will be suspended so workers can be educated on the new regulations.