The Year in Review, The Year Ahead: A New Year's Message from Local 100 President John Samuelsen

On behalf of the 40,000 members (and growing) and officers of TWU Local 100, I wish you and your family all the best for a happy, healthy New Year, and the hope that 2015 brings you good things all year long. Your union will be working hard to insure that your livelihood is protected, that you are safe on the job, and that our contracts are enforced by the union, and respected at all times by management. I am happy to report that our 34,000 TA and OA members will start the New Year off right with a 2 percent across-the-board wage increase.  This raise comes courtesy of the contract we negotiated with the MTA in April 2014.

The contract provided raises in every year, with full retroactivity. We also won a package of non-wage benefits worth four wage points, including huge gains in dental and optical, first time ever lifetime spousal medical benefits, free rides on Metro North and the LIRR and two weeks paid paternity and maternity leave on the birth or adoption of a child. In all, we won $635 million in wages and benefits.

If you compare this to the new City pattern agreement (which includes 18 months of zero increases, with a resulting loss of retroactive pay, as well as a union commitment of $3.4 billion in health care savings), you'll see that our agreement far outpaces what the City unions are getting.  This result proves the value of a negotiated settlement, rather than leaving our fate in the hands of an arbitrator.  Had we allowed our contract to go to arbitration, we would have been subject to the less valuable  City pattern, without the medical benefit improvements which Local 100 gained.

As the New Year begins, we are in the middle of a multi-pronged campaign to bring these same wage and benefit improvements to our MTA Bus members, along with much needed pension improvements. Winning pension increases for our membership at MTA Bus is the primary goal of our union as we move into 2015. We absolutely will not settle the contract at MTA Bus without the pension improvement. 

We also made tremendous progress in 2014 for our Brothers and Sisters in our School Bus Division.  The union committed unprecedented new resources to this important and growing area of our union.  We opened a new satellite office in Yonkers, and our union officers and staffers worked relentlessly to settle contracts.  As a result, we now have current contracts covering all of our school bus properties for the first time in a decade, with raises on all properties scheduled for 2015.

Also for the first time in many years, we scored huge wins on the organizing front, thanks to strong support from our International Union and International President Harry Lombardo.  We won victories among the 550 workers at Global Contact Services, the MTA's contractor for the Access-a-Ride call center in Long Island City. We also won a representation election against the ATU at Quality Bus in Brooklyn, and have now finally been certified there by the NLRB.  Finally, we won elections at four Bikeshare properties, including New York (Citibike), Boston (Hubway), Chicago (Divvy) and Washington, D.C. (Capital Bike).  

We are actively negotiating a contract for New York's Bikeshare workers. When settled, that agreement will likely serve as a template for a national Bikeshare accord. The growth potential of Bikeshare in American cities is truly unlimited. We recognized this potential early on. We have made a commitment to these workers that we will fight to make sure their faith in TWU is properly rewarded.

We had a big year in 2014 on the political front as well, with passage in the State Legislature of three major bills directly impacting transit workers. 

Unfortunately, Gov. Cuomo vetoed one of those bills, the Veterans bill, that would have allowed veterans who served during peacetime and certain non-covered conflicts, to purchase up to three years of extra pension credit in the City or State public employee pension plans.  Current legislation, passed in 2000, allows such buy-backs only for  service during periods of covered conflicts.

Despite the Cuomo veto, we are already well on our way to a renewed fight in Albany in 2015 for similar legislation that will give our Veterans what they need and deserve, while at the same time satisfying the Governor's concerns that led to his veto in the first place.

2014 also saw the continuation and growth of our very successful college scholarship program, in conjunction with M3 Technology, the union's voluntary insurance administrator for supplemental disability and life insurance. Since 2010, when the program began, we have awarded $125,000 in scholarships to the children of 125 active or retired members.  That's 25 scholarships per year.   But in 2015, I am happy to announce that M3 is doubling its commitment to the program, and will fund fifty $1,000 scholarships to eligible recipients.  We are looking at other ways to further increase the program. Our goal is to increase this to 100 scholarships a year for Local 100 children.

During 2014, we fully completed the transition to our new union hall in Brooklyn.   Thanks to our great location, our hall is not only the usual beehive of activity for our membership, it is rapidly becoming a central meeting place for organizations friendly to TWU and transit workers.  I hope that you will make every effort to attend a division meeting here, or just come by to visit.  It's your union home.

As we move into 2015 we will continue to build TWU Local 100. We will continue to expand the shop steward program, and train our elected officers. We will build upon the excellent progress we have made in our political operation. And, we will continually work to improve the services your union currently provides for Local 100 families. 

Most importantly, we will continue to strengthen the union as we prepare for the battles that lie ahead.