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Waterway Driver Jose Villarroel casts his ballot on Dec 16th.

Membership Approves 5-year Contract at NY Waterway

TWU Local 100 members at NY Waterway, the ferry service that links NYC to New Jersey and the Hudson Valley, voted 52 to 5 to approve a new contract on December 16th. The ratification vote, administered by the Local 100 Elections Committee, was conducted by secret ballot in a walk-in tally at the Waterway building at Pier 79 on the West Side. TWU Local 100 represents Bus Drivers and Cleaners at the company. The agreement sets the hiring rate for new employees at $15.75 and provides raises for all employees in every year of the agreement. It grants retroactive raises of $1 per hour going back to July 1, 2015, as well as retroactive reimbursements for health care and vision expenses. It provides for additional personal days based on longevity at 10 and 15 year steps.The contract term runs from last July through June 30, 2020.

Undercover Officer Mirjan Lolja after assaulting NYCT Conductor

Judge Won't Accept Plea Deal in Conductor Assault

DECEMBER 17 -- A Bronx judge rejected a plea deal Thursday that would have let a police officer who beat up an on-duty female transit worker get off scot-free. Prosecutors recently offered Mirjan Lolja a deal requiring that he only attend anger management classes and stay away from his victim for two years. He was expected to plead guilty to aggravated harassment, a misdemeanor, but Justice Carol Sharpe rejected the proposed deal. Sharpe set a trial date of Feb. 8.

"We applaud Bronx Supreme Court Justice Sharpe for rejecting an extremely lenient and inappropriate plea offer," TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen said. "This was an outrageous, unprovoked and violent attack on a transit worker who was simply doing her job. Riders have to know that abusing public servants will not be tolerated and will bring about serious consequences." Watch President Samuelsen's interview on NY1 on this case here.

Sharpe didn’t explain her decision but court system spokesman David Bookstaver said, “I believe the decision speaks for itself.” Lolja was charged with misdemeanor assault, harassment and official misconduct for jumping on the conductor’s back, knocking her to the concrete platform and forcefully yanking her hair. He then fled the scene like a common criminal. Lolja was heading home from a nightclub at about 2:30 a.m. on Dec. 23, 2014, when the incident occurred at the E. Tremont/Grand Concourse subway station. He apparently was angered and frustrated by a late-night service change and related delays. The conductor was stationed on the platform to assist riders with directions when she was subjected to his abuse. Another conductor on the platform witnessed the attack and came to her aid.

Hoping to solve the crime, the NYPD CrimeStoppers released a surveillance photo of the perpetrator and asked for the public to help make identification. Only after fellow cops starting telling Lolja he looked just like the perpetrator did he turn himself in. Any punishment meted out to Lolja has to include his dismissal from the police force, Kia Phua, the newly elected union vice president for RTO, said. “He acted like a criminal. He ran like a criminal and should be treated like a criminal. He doesn’t deserve a NYPD badge and certainly should not have a gun.” In the last year, transit workers were criminally assaulted 89 times. They were harassed – kicked, shoved, threatened and spat upon – more than 2,000 times, according to MTA statistics.

Transit Assaults: Better Strategies Needed

BY PETE DONOHUE

Abuse of transit workers is rampant – and rising.

In the 12-month period ending Oct. 31, bus and subway workers reported being harassed by riders 2,176 times, according to police statistics provided by the MTA. That’s an 11% increase from the previous 12-month period. Harassment is a misdemeanor that encompasses such punkish behavior as threatening, shoving, kicking and spitting on someone. More serious misdemeanor and felony assaults also increased in the subway - but they declined on buses.

So what’s going on? Just like the attacks themselves, it’s hard to say with certainty. How do you explain a rider becoming so irate about being asked to pay the fare that he or she spits on a Bus Operator? How do you explain a rider, like off-duty police officer Mirjan Lolja, who tackled and throttled a female conductor doing platform duty in December 2014, apparently because he was frustrated about service delays and didn’t like how she answered his questions? In response to such brutish behavior, authorities over the last 15 years cobbled together a patchwork of strategies aimed at safeguarding transit workers. Some seem to be successful while others aren’t living up to their billing.

Bus partitions are the bright spot. There are now more than 4,000 buses with see-through partitions shielding Operators from the loons riding among us. Felony and misdemeanor attacks against Bus Operators dropped from 109 in the year ending in October 2014 to 83 in the year ending October 2015.

The legal system is baffling at best. Anyone who assaults a transit worker, theoretically, faces up to 7 years in state prison on a felony second-degree assault charge. That elevated punishment for injuring a transit worker was established by a state law that was passed with much fanfare in 2002. But few offenders get arrested, convicted and sentenced to state prison on that charge. Lolja, for example, was charged with a misdemeanor, a low-level crime. (He is due back in Bronx court Thursday, Dec. 17.)

Finally, there’s a program that called TransitWatch that could be dubbed TransitFlop. The program offers up to $2,000 in reward money for information leading to the arrest and indictment of a rider who assaults a transit worker. Since its launch more than three years ago, only one reward has been paid, an MTA official said. The best move right now would be for the MTA, or even Gov. Cuomo, to appoint a task force with members of substance who can get things done, not retired fuddy-duddies who are now consultants.

The task force should sort out why harassments are up; identify what strategies that were enacted to safeguard transit workers in NYC are working and which ones aren’t. It also should look at how crimes against transit workers are being classified, charged and prosecuted by the police and district attorneys, and if the law needs to be changed again. Then the task force needs to draft a concrete plan of action. Being subjected to approximately 2,200 incidents of harassment and assaults a year – more than 6 incidents of abuse a day on average – simply isn’t acceptable for any workforce, especially one serving the public.

TWU International President Harry Lombardo and Local 100 President Samuelsen at the Dec 12 Mass Membership Meeting

Mass Membership Powers Up TWU for 2016 Fights

Speaking to a crowd of TWU Local 100 members in the same hall where our “greatest generation” voted to shut down the City fifty years ago, TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen laid out a new course for 2016, focusing on “money in the pockets of transit workers.” To an audience salted with dozens of veterans of the 1966 strike under Mike Quill, Samuelsen and TWU International President Harry Lombardo sounded the themes of TWU militancy and the strength of the union family. Samuelsen welcomed the newly organized members who have swelled our ranks to upwards of 42,000 and promised a no-holds-barred fight to better the working conditions of our call agents at GCS/Access-a-Ride. He recapped the contract fight of 2012-2014 and urged members to prepare themselves for a new campaign once the holidays are over. He also acknowledged the veterans of the TWU’s other big citywide strikes, in 1980 and 2005. More Mass Membership 2015 coverage will be featured in the next Transport Workers Bulletin.

AMNY: Fake Money Discipline Costing the MTA

DECEMBER 11 -- In a story out on newsstands today, AM New York reporter Rebecca Harshbarger reports on the MTA's policy on counterfeit bills. TWU Local 100 has been raising two issues with the MTA for months -- that Station Agents lack the proper equipment to identify counterfeits and that, because of this, are subject to unfair discipline. Hearings -- which revolve around the question of how to detect the frauds -- are costing the MTA more than the money lost through the fake bills, the article reveals. The MTA has new equipment to scan bills but instead tells Station Agents to rely on a special pen that can be defeated by counterfeiters. The union is calling on the MTA to install the new readers in every booth. Read the whole story here.

Pena Case: Nearly Two Years Without a Plea

DECEMBER 4:TWU Local 100 officers and rank and file came to Manhattan Criminal Court today for the 21st court hearing in the case of the People vs. Domonic Whilby, who drunkenly drove a bread truck into the M14 bus operated by William Pena, killing him early on the morning of February 12, 2014. They had the news that yet another postponement in the case until January 25 had been granted by Judge Gregory Carro, this time to allow a defense expert to produce a toxicology report. This was the same reason given for the last court postponement to today’s hearing.

Nancy Rodriguez, Willie’s widow, standing at the side of newly elected MABSTOA Vice President Richard Davis, asked Manhattan ADA Randolph Clarke why there had been so many delays in the case. Clarke replied that his office wanted to make sure that their case against Whilby would withstand any later motion to appeal a verdict. Nancy asked about the seemingly interminable hearings: “When does it stop?” Clarke gave no clear answer, saying, “I understand your frustration, but we want to make sure justice is served thoroughly and securely.”

Nancy had made it clear that she wants no plea bargain cut with Whilby attorney Laura Miranda, but instead wants the case against Whilby to go to trial with him facing the highest count of murder in the second degree.

Outside the court house, Nancy and her family joined Richard Davis and other MaBSTOA officers and members in this video appeal for union members to tie red ribbons from Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) – on their vehicles during his holiday season.

Re-Elected (l-r) Pres. John Samuelsen, Adm. VP Angel Giboyeaux, Rec. Secretary Latonya Crisp-Sauray, Sec-Treasurer Earl Phillips

Samuelsen, Stand United Top Four Re-Elected by TWU Membership

The Stand United Slate also won six of the seven Vice President positions.

Click here for the full results from the TWU Local 100 Elections Committee.

Not enough? Click here for the raw counts for each of the 20 ballots.

GCS Call Center Agent Esther Mota, represented by TWU Local 100, details working conditions to the MTA Board last month.

NY Times Covers GCS Contract Fight; Ties Worker Grievances to Fight for $15

NOVEMBER 28 -- The New York Times today ran a comprehensive piece on TWU Local 100's fight to secure decent wages and working conditions for members who toil at the Access-A-Ride call center on Northern Boulevard in Queens, tying their fight to the national push for a $15 living wage for workers. The piece chronicled the pushback by the Union since call center workers voted to have Local 100 as their bargaining agent against the intransigence of management, which has fired many who supported the Union. Management's hard line seems to have softened a bit after we called for a strike vote last month. The CEO of Global Contact Services, Greg Alcorn, who runs the operation, met twice with TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen last week in an effort to come to a settlement without a strike. The MTA Board has also been aggressively questioning GCS's handling of their contract. GCS has also allowed TWU Local 100 reps onto the property for the first time. Read the Times article here.

MTA Bus Members Ratify New Contract

NOVEMBER 24 -- Local 100 members employed by MTA Bus have ratified their new contract by an overwhelming 95 percent margin. The American Arbitration Association announced the results of the referendum at 3:00 p.m. this afternoon.

The contract covers nearly 2,200 members at MTA Bus as Bus Operators, Maintainers, Maintainer Helpers, Cleaner Helpers, Stock Workers and Assistant Stock Workers.

The wage and benefit package mirrors the gains secured in the TA/OA contract, with raises in every year, full retroactivity, and an impressive array of improved and new benefits.

The contract also brings a major breakthrough on the MTA Bus pension, which has been a massive problem for years, and is far less valuable in comparison to the public pensions covering TA and OA members.

Local 100 President John Samuelsen, who led the Negotiating team for the union, was finally able to punch through management's resistance on the pension issue.

Political Leaders: TWU Veterans Influential in Budget Victory

Some of New York State's most prominent politicians gave credit to the Union's political action achievements in supporting veteran's legislation that has led to a tentative budget deal in Albany. For the past two year, Local 100's Veterans Committee, spearheaded by RTO VP Kevin Harrington, has pushed for legislation that would have allowed US servicemen and women -- without regard to where they served --- buy back up to three years's pension credit. Governor Cuomo vetoed the bill twice - but has now signaled his intent to include the same provisions in next year's NYS Budget. At our Veteran's Appreciation NIght, Assemblyman Peter Abbate, State Sen. Martin Golden, and Brian Maher, chief aide to Assemb. William Larkin, Jr., the prime sponsor of the Veteran's bill, lavished praise on Local 100 as staunch fighters and advocates for all veterans. The video shows the cameraderie in the room and the strong alliance we have built with the legislators.