Utano Fires Back
In a scathing Letter to The Editor of the New York Post, TWU Local 100 President Tony Utano blasted a right-wing policy analyst for claiming subway riders don’t need conductors on board.
Utano’s letter – which was published in Sunday, Nov. 11th edition of the tabloid – was in response to an opinion piece that appeared in The Post five days earlier. This is what Utano wrote:
"Transit workers know garbage when they see it: We haul 40 tons of it from the subway every day. “The cure for New York’s ailing transit system,” an op-ed in The Post on Nov. 6, is exactly that: garbage (Connor Harris, PostOpinion). Harris, of the right-wing Manhattan Institute, wrote that compared to systems in cities like London, the MTA’s labor costs are too high. Harris doesn’t bother to explain the Underground closes at midnight. Yes, providing service is more expensive than suspending it.
Harris also recklessly claims conductors are “obsolete.” Really? Conductor Kevin Bartsch performed CPR on a rider who went into cardiac arrest, saving his life. Conductor Warren Cox prevented a distraught woman, who was holding a child, from jumping in front of a train. Conductor Benjamin Schaeffer evacuated his train after a deranged man poured gasoline on the floor.
Transit workers provide valuable service 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That’s the truth, not trash." -- Tony Utano, President of Transport Workers Union Local 100, Brooklyn, NY.