Transit Workers Rock the MTA’s World With a Powerful Message That TWU Will Not Be Denied

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OCTOBER 30 -- Upwards of 10,000 transit workers – wearing TWU blue on their backs and in their hearts – flooded the streets outside the MTA’s Broadway headquarters and sent a heart-pounding message across New York City and State: Local 100 members are ready for anything to win a fair contract and to turn back management’s challenge to the power of a united workforce.

The sea of transit workers extended from the MTA’s doorstep at 2 Broadway southward to Water Street and westward across Bowling Green plaza to Battery Park. Answering the union’s call for a demonstration of unity and strength, Local 100 members starting arriving at the rally site early, even as the staging area and police barricades were still being set up. By 5:00pm, the time the union’s fliers, emails and web posts urged members to begin gathering, the streets were already filled to overflow.

The police detail assigned to the rally decided early that keeping a lane open down Whitehall St. for emergency vehicles was hopeless against the crush of blue-colored humanity. It proved a wise decision, as two marches by anywhere from 1,000 to 1,500 more transit workers descended on the rally from the south and the north.  MABSTOA members, carrying banners displaying pride in their union and their depots, powered up Broadway along Battery Park from South Ferry and across Bowling Green Plaza into the fray. TAS members streamed southward from City Hall to join the rally just as it was beginning. These powerful displays added another jolt of energy to an already supercharged crowd.

Local 100 President Tony Utano galvanized the crowd with an opening salvo to the MTA and its Chairman Pat Foye that TWU will not be denied.  He inspired chants of “we got the power,” from the excited crowded, and then answered them, with a definitive, “That’s right, we got the power, and we’re going to use it.” Numerous labor leaders, including TWU International President John Samuelsen, State Federation President Mario, Cilento, New York City Central Labor Council President Vincent Alvarez, LIRR/SMART General Chairman Anthony Simon, Teamsters Local 808 (Metro-North) Secretary Treasurer Chris Silvera, ATU Presidents Danny Casella (Staten Island) and Mark Henry (Queens), and AFSCME District Council 37 leaders Henry Garrido and Shaun Francois, further inspired the crowd with messages of solidarity. Politicians from across the City, including Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, and representatives from the City Council, the New York State Assembly and the Senate also delivered messages of support.

The media, which rarely covers rallies, swarmed the event from all the major outlets in TV, radio and print giving the rally and its message of fairness for transit workers universally positive coverage. N.J. Burkett from WABC Channel 7 called it “one of the largest and loudest union rallies I’ve seen in New York in a long time.” The rally was also covered by The New York Daily News, The Wall St. Journal, The New York Post, television channels 1, 4, 11, and WINS radio. The MTA’s lame answer to the rally that “we don’t negotiate in the press” was little more than a coverage afterthought.

More on the rally will be posted in the coming days.