New Blood from Coro Fellows Energizes Union Fight

Coro Fellows with PAC Director Marvin Holland
Coro Fellows with PAC Director Marvin Holland

TWU Local 100 has been benefiting from the services of two Coro Fellows, highly-skilled college graduates who have been selected to be part of a rigorous leadership training program. Coro is a non-profit education organization that's been developing leaders for over 60 years, and training them to tackle complex problems by rotating them in and out of government and industry.

Local 100's two Coro fellows, David Bocarsly and Michelle St. Julien, were thrown into the mix to help tackle two of our most pressing issues: David was assigned to research the differences between MTA bus employees and the rest of the MTA workforce. Michelle was put to work mapping and analyzing patterns of bus operator assaults in Brooklyn.

Working out of the PAC "war room" on the 9th floor, and mentored by PAC Director Marvin Holland, David and Michelle immersed themselves in the issues and culture of our union. David, who comes from California and attended UCLA, did research and met with City Council members to educate them on the history of the MTA Bus pension and what could be done to fix  the inequity.

Michelle, who was raised in Queens and attended Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA, devoted herself to understanding the complex issue of Bus Operator assaults in Brooklyn, and created a color-coded map showing where assaults occur. She met with the Brooklyn DA's point man on assaults, Gregory Thomas, to understand how the deterrent program of decals on buses is working. She made an observation that will probably strike home with most Bus Operators: While the decals say that an assault on a Bus Operator is a felony carrying a penalty of up to 7 years in jail, there is no minimum penalty. This means that there's enough wiggle room for a potential perp to figure he may get off with a slap on the wrist -- which indeed happens in many cases. Local 100's position as an activist union that takes on problems aggressively has been bolstered  and supported by our Coro Fellows, who ended their assignments in mid-December. Congratulations to them and to the union members who supported and mentored them in their work.