Chris Tobin Respond to Third Rail Chairperson

Posted: Monday, February 14, 2011 5:00 pm | Updated: 4:14 pm, Mon Feb 14, 2011.

CHRIS TOBIN | 0 comments

To the Editor:

Concerning the pathetic joke Transport Workers Union Local 100 President John Samuelsen’s administration has developed into, I would like to respond to TWU Third Rail Chairman Thomas Creegan’s recent letter and James Mahoney’s criticism of such.

Creegan, whom I have seen at union functions but do not know personally, is clearly on target. I was present at the 2010 TWU Mass Membership Meeting at the Javits Center, and during the Solidarity Fund seminar I sat in the front row, from which I heard Samuelsen clearly promise that “If there are any monies left in the Solidarity Fund after six months they should be returned to the members.”

Nothing was ever said at any time that when the intake of members’ money for this fund stopped, the program would continue beyond six months. Extending this program in any fashion should be done only if the members were to vote to do so. It cannot be a decision made by Samuelsen and his executive board puppets.

Any attempt to extend the Solidarity Fund program can only be viewed as a covert way of depleting the remaining balance rightfully due the members, thereby negating any refund.

By far and away this is not the first or only broken promise or shady practice launched by Samuelsen since he took office. Please allow me to chronicle just a few of the more glaring ones:

Samuelsen promised “complete transparency” in all of Local 100’s financial affairs. He recently authorized that the local pay for a trip to Portugal for Train Operator Division Chairman Steve Downs to observe their massive ongoing labor strike. When you consider that it is against the Taylor Law for Local 100 to strike, what benefit did the local derive from this trip to observe a labor strike in a foreign country?

This is the same Steve Downs who filed official charges several years ago on both Roger Toussaint and Samuelsen for taking a union-paid trip to Ireland. A trip to Portugal is acceptable and a trip to Ireland is not? I have news for everyone: neither is acceptable in my eyes. In 2010, Samuelsen also approved a trip to Venezuela for Local 100 Safety Director Earl Phillips on alleged TWU official business. One can only wonder if there was some earth-shattering safety news that Phillips could obtain only if he went to Venezuela in person.

Samuelsen attempted to remove $96,000 from the Local 100 Building Fund in 2010 to pay for three missing Committee on Political Education (COPE) payments from 2009 without explaining where the monies that came out of the members’ checks for COPE in 2009 went. If the members’ 2009 COPE deductions did not go for COPE, where did they go? Samuelsen’s only response to this is, “I was not President in 2009.” That is correct: he was not, but Curtis Tate was. Tate is currently on Samuelsen’s staff at over $100,000 per year. Tate must bear the overall responsibility for these three missing COPE payments, since he was acting president and Samuelsen should (but won’t) go one better. If Tate cannot say definitively where the missing $96,000 in 2009 COPE deductions went, then he needs to be removed from his executive union position and sent back to operating trains. If anything cries out louder than this for an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, I have no idea what it may be.

Samuelsen promised Local 100 members that after it was revealed that he used his official TWU-issued credit card to buy family groceries at Pathmark, he “would reimburse the local in full the next day.” Two members have made requests for physical proof that he did just that, seeking copies of his cancelled check made out to Pathmark and the store receipt proving he did, in fact, “reimburse the local in full the next day” as he maintains. Releasing this information would go a long way towards restoring Samuelsen’s credibility.

So far, these requests have been ignored, and when questioned about his alleged reimbursement to the local, his chilling reply was “This is a non-issue.” Not to be cynical, but when anyone is caught doing wrong, they immediately lose the air of credibility. To deem this a “non-issue” is tantamount to a smack in the face of the members who made these requests.

Hopefully, in just under 22 months, the hard-working men and women of TWU Local 100 will rise up, see the wanton fraud John Samuelsen and his cohorts have brought into this union and send him back to the Track Department. Of course, he may already have a deal in place with Larry Hanley, president of the International Amalgamated Transit Union for a cushy do-nothing post for nearly double his current salary. The TWU International did it for Toussaint; why not Samuelsen?

CHRIS TOBIN