John Samuelsen’s Friends

Currently as all of you have noticed TWU Local 100 has championed City Council Blizzard hearings. Members are wondering what benefit those hearings are going to garner for them?

Ms. Christine Quinn the speaker of the New York City council has the intention to run for mayor of office in 2013 and John Samuelsen wants to help her accomplish that. Thus we are being blasted with endless stories of the blizzard hearings in the boroughs which does not return dividends to the membership. Even though Ms. Quinn has killed labor backed bill for $10 an hour for her to be desirable or even electable she has to side with Wall Street. As we all know Wall Street is not main street or blue collar but if she does not embrace Wall Street then her fate would be as Ms. Ruth Wyler Messinger (who was a real labor advocate) who was unsuccessful in her run for mayor in the 1997 election.

NYC City Council blizzard hearings are a great diversion exploited by John Samuelsen and his spin machine to distract the membership. However Samuelsen’s stagnation does enhance his fatigue to grow up from underneath which will be heard in the election of 2012. Samuelsen’s policies are flawed and short sighted thus harming the membership.

Now lets look at the blizzard you can call it a winter wonderland or a huge pain. Students for example were off from school which was welcome relief for them and who seemed to be having much more fun than the commuters. Now comes the allegations that ‘Sanitation workers, angry about job reductions, had deliberately staged a slowdown’ that Saturday Night Live felt to take a jab at the unions. Now there is a panel of a federal grand jury that has been installed maybe some will be indicted as blue collar.

John Samuelsen may call Ms. Quinn probably to ask her to intervene for those sanitation workers in the event that they have to appear in the federal courts. The bottom line is that those blizzard hearings did not provide dividend for the TWU Local 100 membership it just demonstrated additional short sighted policies of Samuelsen.

Refund

Since TWU Local 100 has claimed "Mission Accomplished" it reminded us of the other banner titled "Mission Accomplished" that was displayed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during a televised address by United States President George W Bush on May 1, 2003 and the controversy that followed.

The executive committee approved ending the so called poisonous John Samuelsen solidarity fund contribution. Now the other promise of the TWU Local 100 president John Samuelsen is that the monies collected would be refunded if not used. We are not holding our breath to that. 

Since the fund has reached the level needed to fulfill its mission, we are concerned that ‘Fund will continue for several months to pay for medical benefits for our laid-off brothers and sisters’ is not acceptable. This is loophole where a bus could drive thru. In addition the numbers as of January 19, 2011 showed that the balance is $2,702,172.37. There is no detailed numbers breakdown of the benefits paid. The $361,232.36 that was paid indicates that only 125 members received benefits. Thus indicating that on  average each member received a benefit of $2,889.85.

Since Local 100 doesn’t have neither a treasurer nor a temporary treasurer - except a fox guarding a henhouse since October 2010. ‘The several months’ is not acceptable due to the fact that the benefits paid could dramatically be inflated, therefore gnawing at the balance. 

If President George W Bush has inspired president John Samuelsen as well as the executive committee to copy GOP tactics blindly. The republican party has controlled the white House for 28 of the past 40 years. The Republican Revolution controlled the House of Representatives from 1995-2006, and the GOP had control of the Senate for most of the 14 years. Former Senator Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, deserves particular credit/blame for the current crisis. Within a year of becoming Chairman of the Senate Banking Commission in 1999, Chairman Gramm pushed through legislation gutting the New Deal banking insurance and securities laws. The Gramm Leach Act created the Wild West deregulatory environment that fostered the derivative industry that collapsed the financial world. Just like the public had enough with the republicans by kicking them out of the house, senate and the White House the TWU Local 100 will respond in the same manner to Samuelsen’s republican inspired money grabbing schemes by sending him back to work.