Called a Toussaint 'Puppet'
TWU Feuds Over Private Lines VP

By ARI PAUL

After more than five months without a vice president, the Private Lines Division of Transport Workers Union Local 100 has one.

Local 100's executive board appointed Queens Division Vice Chairman and LaGuardia Depot-based Bus Operator Enzo Sinnona Aug. 27 amid calls from division members and a former vice president for an election. Local 100 President Roger Toussaint steadfastly maintained that the union's bylaws gave the executive board the power to fill the vice president's vacancy by appointment. The division has been without a vice president since April, when Acting Vice President Rod Bailey, who ran on the opposition Rail and Bus slate, took a management-level position. Mr. Toussaint voiced confidence about the board's choice.

'He Stood Up'

"In 2002, when an attempt was made to split the Private Lines from Local 100, he was one of the activists who stood up for a strong union instead of disunity and weakness," Mr. Toussaint said of Mr. Sinnona in a letter to members Aug. 28. "Until his selection as vice president, he was vice chair of the division and depot chair at LaGuardia. In the latter capacity he made news earlier this year with the depot's spirited support for assaulted Bus Operator Henry Ye."

Former Local 100 Private Lines Vice President Neil Winberry, who ran and lost on Mr. Toussaint's One Union slate, had voiced concern over the lack of a contract for the division and circulated a petition for a new election in June, likening the stasis in negotiations to an airplane in a holding pattern running low on fuel.

"Members in the Private Lines face many challenges in the coming period, starting with the overdue MTA Bus contract," Mr. Toussaint said in his letter. "They need to have a vice president in place as they meet those challenges."

But some members see Mr. Sinnona's appointment as a political maneuver meant to dilute the influence of the Queens and Westchester Division chairmen, both of whom ran on the dissident Fresh Start slate.

'He's a Roger-Kisser'

Queens Division Chairman Joe Sexton had called for an election rather than an executive board appointment and felt that Mr. Sinnona was not a good choice for the position of vice president.

"All he did was kiss Roger's ass," Mr. Sexton said. "He has no business taking this job. He didn't earn it."

One former union official offered a different view, however, saying that Mr. Sinnona had been active during the Private Bus Lines strike a couple of years ago and noting that he supported Conductor Mike Carrube, who headed the Fresh Start slate against Mr. Toussaint in last year's election.

"The workers respect him tremendously," said this official, who spoke conditioned on anonymity. "Nobody stood up better than Sinnona. Then he got into a fight with Roger, because Roger gets into fights easily."

Mr. Sinnona declined to comment. In a letter to Private Lines members in July, Mr. Toussaint vowed to deliver a contract for members that had "A wage settlement which resolves the problem of different wage scales for the same work (i.e. parity), ... guaranteed health benefits that don't leave widows and children behind [and] work rules we can live with."

Mr. Sinnona's appointment is part of Mr. Toussaint's ongoing reorganization of the division. In July, Mr. Toussaint announced that the division would morph from a two division structure to a three division structure. Local 100 also opened a new Private Lines Division office in Yonkers with Gil Bobe, a former subway worker, as its appointed head. Mr. Toussaint recently informed Mr. Sexton that he was not authorized to travel to three locations that the Queens Division represents.

Calling Mr. Sinnona a "clown," Mr. Sexton said the new vice president did not have the ability to negotiate a fair contract for members. "To appoint a guy who is going to be a puppet more or less hurts the members," Mr. Sexton said. "Roger once again did what he always did."