Consolidation

The Implementation Agreement - OA/TA Surface Consolidation was signed on August 25, 2003 by Roger Toussaint who was president of TWU Local 100 then. This was not a well thought out agreement because it was only advantageous to the employer at the cost of the employees.

The concept of a Regional Bus Company is a great one however consolidation of the separate entities always comes at the cost to the employees. The question is why did the former president, his lieutenants and loyalists agree with the consolidation without having the concept of Regional Bus Company come to fruition? 

There is no question the concept of a Regional Bus Company is a fantastic idea that can cover New York City, Long Island and Westchester. Why agree to merge the bus divisions, which run as two separate companies? The TA Surface is covered by the Civil Service Laws whereas MaBSTOA is not. Were Toussaint and his loyalists not able to see the elephant in the room?

There is no question the merger - consolidation cost employees their jobs as well as their overtime. This can be clearly seen by fast forwarding to this year (2010) with the great number of layoffs. Since MaBSTOA does not have the protection of the Civil Service Laws its employees were annihilated in the layoffs. Samuelsen a Toussaint protege and loyalist claims he has a lawsuit pending in court regarding the layoffs. According to Samuelsen the layoffs should be based on the consolidation list with the ratio one to one from TA and OA, it is a great theory but it has no standing, layoffs ratios was not covered in the implementation agreement.

When one goes to court, one must be on the right but is wronged in some way and thus the courts uses its power to bring the injured party as a whole. Here in our lawsuit one can only predict the outcome based on the evidence present: 1) Implementation Agreement, 2) Civil Service Laws, 3) economy downturn - a reasonable jurist will conclude it's water over the dam.

There has never been a lawsuit recently filed that has brought significant accomplishment to the benefit of the employees especially from our Local 100. Thus Samuelsen’s lawsuit rhetoric becomes meaningless. We can predict what the outcome of the lawsuit will be. 

Then why utilize the dwindling resources and energy of the local 100 to a fruitless endeavor? We demand that Samuelsen and TBOU limit this wasteful spending chasing after red herring because there is no lawyer in the world who will tell you that you can’t win. Imagine if those funds were used to play the lottery then our chance of winning the jackpot would be 1 in 45 million. Winning that jackpot would cure all of Local 100’s ills and if we lose we would have done good because the lottery revenue will be distributed to school districts aiding education which is a good deed. However going to court and coming out on the losing end is not the right thing to do because it harms the membership!