TWU “Crashes” de Blasio Presser to Tell the Mayor He Must Act Now

TWU Local 100 members and officials attended today’s de Blasio presser at Brooklyn Borough Hall at which the Mayor officially announced his call for the State Legislature to pass a millionaire’s tax on the City’s wealthiest residents to provide as much as $500 million annually to the MTA Capital Plan and $250 million for half-fares for the City’s working poor.

As the Mayor rambled on for 13 minutes about the legislation, TWU members held up signs telling the Mayor that he needed to spend some of the City’s current $4 billion surplus to fund at least half of the proposed MTA $850 million fix that would add as many as 2,700 new transit jobs in most titles. Local 100 Secretary Treasurer Earl Phillips told the media, after the Mayor left the stage, that TWU likes the concept of a millionaire’s tax, but that any help from the tax plan wouldn’t be available for at least another year, if not longer, if ever. “There is a crisis now, not next year,” said Phillips.  “The Mayor has a $4 billion surplus.  The MTA has a legitimate plan to address the current crisis. The Mayor needs to dip into that surplus now to help ease the current emergency.”

This morning, the fourth ad in the union’s campaign to get the Mayor to take responsibility to fix the subways, appeared in the New York Daily News on page 13.