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Signal Power Failure Halts UWS Train Service; Passengers Evacuated

FEBRUARY 5 -- TWU Local 100 Transit crews operated with great professionalism when a sudden failure of power to the signal system between 96th Street and 72nd Street on the Upper West Side brought all service on the 1, 2, and 3 trains to a halt at 8:40 AM, the height of rush hour. As a fully loaded ten-car No. 2 train came to a dead stop south of 96th Street, Conductor Tyler Croft kept passengers' spirits up as they waited in the tunnel for 35 minutes, by making frequent announcements informing them about the MTA's progress in assessing and fixing the outage. When he mentioned the news coverage that was most likely accompanying the incident, passengers exchanged smiles. Croft advised passengers of the presence of MTA crews on the tracks, and then conducted an orderly evacuation of all passengers once the last two cars were backed up into the station, allowing egress. Signal crews wearing their yellow hardhats were on the scene along with FDNY within minutes. The outage was fixed and service was restored at approximately 10:30.

Union Reps Dylan Valle (left) and Gus Moghrabi tell the Transportation Committee that there is insufficient due process for school bus drivers

Union Pushes for Fairness in Discipline for School Bus Drivers, Matrons

School Bus personnel like those who work at our Westchester properties, face job insecurity from a flawed disciplinary system. It works like this: even though the drivers and matrons work for private companies under contract to school boards, the school boards can "disqualify" an employee from employment for any reason or no reason. A parent complaint, School Bus Division Rep Gus Moghrabi told the State Legislature, got a bus driver fired in Greenburgh, when he refused to let a child out at an unscheduled stop. Read his testimony here. There was no fact finding, no disciplinary due process, no right to arbitration. A bill being proposed in the State house, by State Senator Andrew Lanza and Assemblywoman Cathy Nolan, would rectify this by requiring school boards to follow the contractual disciplinary process agreed upon by the TWU and the private companies operating school bus companies. This bill will be a major push for TWU Local 100 during the coming legislative session.

Simon, Samuelsen Stand Together as SMART Pushes MTA Board for Raises Along PEB Lines

JANUARY 29 -- The stage is set for an LIRR strike come spring if the MTA does not accept the recommendations of a Presidential Emergency Board (PEB), recently impaneled by President Obama to look at wages and benefits at the railroad. That was the message of SMART General Chairman Anthony Simon, who appeared today before the MTA Board of Directors in the company of TWU Local 100 President John Samuelsen at the Authority's corporate headquarters on Madison Avenue. Speaking at the Board's first meeting of 2014, Simon -- representing a coalition of 70% of LIRR unionized employees -- expressed his members' anger and frustration over being told to take three zeroes and make concessions while MTA managers were getting raises through "creative" accounting practices. Just 45 minutes earlier, in the same board room, the MTA's Audit Committee was talking about what to do with a $80 million real estate "windfall." It was the same old story -- money for everything else except worker raises. The PEB panel released its recommendations last month -- a contract worth approximately 18% over six years. But the MTA is rejecting the finding. With the public seating area in the board room taken up by TWU and LIRR union members, Simon said, "I ask this Board to become actively involved to help end this dispute now." After speaking, Simon and Samuelsen talked to the press. That video will be posted on the Local 100 website.

Samuelsen introduces John Philo (center) and Herb Sanders

Activists Carry Alarming News of Government Shutdown Tactics in Michigan to TWU Executive Board

Local 100’s Executive Board got a full-course meal of the awful truth about Michigan’s emergency manager law this week. Unfiltered by hostile media accounts, Herb Sanders of Stand Up For Democracy and John Philo of the National Lawyers Guild served it up straight: after a full-bore assault by a right wing governor and legislature, there’s a potential that public employees in Michigan will see a 50 to 80 percent cut in their pensions and medical care for retirees replaced by a small monthly stipend of $125. Those who haven’t yet retired in cities controlled by emergency managers face the loss of their pensions by fiat.

                Sanders’ warning was straightforward:  “What happened in Detroit is coming to a city near you very soon, unless we are able to demonstrate some solidarity.”