As we approach the new year, I want all of you to do me a solid favor and reflect on all of the good things we as individuals have either accomplished or benefitted from as a result of a movement (Civil Rights, Woman's Rights, Immigration Rights, Housing, Taxation, Healthcare etc...)
Now reflect on our gains and losses as a Union, Then look across this country and look at the individual attacks against other movements Arizona especially.
How does infighting hurt our movement? And Can we turn it around? Keep in mind that our struggles are not just the TWU's! What are your thoughts?
A message from Roger Toussaint:
ReplyDeleteFrom Roger Toussaint, President TWU Local 100 (2001-2009)
I write in the interest of 'truth in reporting' and in response to Pete Donohue's Transit column of Jan 7th. The article is laden with inaccuracies of which I will address but a few.
John Samuelsen was on my staff at Local 100 for 5 years, from 2001 to 2005. In all elections up to that time, he ran on the same slate with me and on my coat tails and never as an independent.
As for being "an organizer of the 2005 Transit strike", nothing could be further from the truth. In the months before the 2005 strike Samuelsen actively boycotted the mobilizations (called "Days of Action" and actively discouraged participation at the mass membership meeting at Jacob Javits Convention Center) which readied the members for that struggle; in fact he had to be ordered to organize picketing during the "Days of Action"; his closest supporters on the Executive Board voted against the strike; 10 days before the contract deadline and while on my staff, he sent a letter addressed to me to the media first to launch a political split; on the second day of the strike Samuelsen was deeply involved in a backdoor attempt to discourage officers from standing firm and to collapse the strike from within - this came in the form of attempting to go around our by laws and the Executive Board and submit management's last offer for a membership vote ; of the hundreds of officers involved in the strike, Samuelsen was the only one to submit paper work seeking to be paid by the Union for the time we were out on strike. When we lost dues checkoff after the strike, John Samuelsen issued at least seven flyers telling the members that any dues they paid would be wasted on staff! That's the record that I know.
While we were focused on the confontation that was coming and on the life or death struggle to survive the cut off of dues - Samuelsen was focused on his political agenda and career and indeed operating like an agent provocateur.
On the other hand, from a reporting standpoint, Pete Donohue lets Samuelsen off real easy on two critical items 1) What is really Samuelsen's politics? ( I know that Samuelsen refused to lift a finger in the 2008 Obama election, evidently saw no significance for what it represented in the life of this Country and is very close to the Republican party and its key operatives in south Brooklyn) and 2) Why did Samuelsen really leave his job as a guard on Rikers Island and the 20 year pension it came with, to take a 30 yr age 62 pension at NYCT? Strangely, Donohue betrays no reporter's curiosity here.
That type of digging is left to other reporters.
I have read the letter written by Roger Toussaint and have to wonder why now?
ReplyDeleteIs Roger returning to claim the Presidency of Local 100, and if so, why did he leave in the first place? Roger had so many folks following him blindly, but there was the International with more money and benefits!
I must say in all honesty that I don't wish any Ill will towards Toussaint, but to come back and attack the current President is a dividing tactic in a time we need to be together. I have said it all along that together we make a difference, and for us to move forward we must stop the foolishness!
When Roger Toussaint negotiated our past Contracts we all stood together no matter who supported who? I believe that John Samuelsen deserves that much! The article in the Daily news that Roger speaks of was piece to show a strong TWU through the current President who has strong labor ties and that I will support any day of the week because that's what's real!
Donald if you wanna know why now go too
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