TWU Local 100 Thanks Sen. Schumer for Being a Transit Champion
“During the Zoom Town Hall meeting you held with TWU in January, and during strategy sessions held with myself and TWU International President John Samuelsen, you promised to keep working tirelessly with organized labor to achieve shared goals: securing federal funding to keep mass transit up and running, avoiding severe and widespread service cuts, and preventing devastating layoffs,” Utano wrote to the senior senator from New York. “You kept your word. On behalf of the men and women who move New York, I want to personally thank you.”
The American Rescue Plan that Schumer steered through the Senate was signed by President Biden on March 11. It included $30 billion for public transit in the United States, including $7 billion for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. This money comes with worker protections requiring the authority to certify that they have not furloughed any workers. The MTA bailout came on top of two other massive financial assistance bills that Schumer was instrumental in getting passed in Washington, D.C., last year.
“Local 100 has paid a heavy price for keeping New York moving during this pandemic,” Utano wrote to Sen. Schumer. “Our members bravely continued to serve their communities by coming to work so that doctors, nurses, EMTs, supermarket employees, and many other essential workers, could get to their vitally important jobs. We faced the threat of massive layoffs because of the economic crisis. The MTA, however, did not lay off a single member. In my mind, this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t advocate for us so strongly in Washington, D.C.”