Claims Bylaw Violation
TWU Steward Rips Toussaint for Ouster

By ARI PAUL

Transport Workers Union Local 100 dissident leader John Samuelsen filed bylaw charges against President Roger Toussaint Nov. 5 for declaring that he was not a shop steward without proper cause.

JOHN SAMUELSEN: Toussaint subverts democracy.

Mr. Toussaint issued a directive in June stating that Track Inspector Samuelsen was not authorized to be a shop steward at his workplace at the 45th St. station on the R line in Brooklyn because he, along with several other Maintenance of Way Division members, signed a letter urging members to pay dues but adding that Mr. Toussaint was required to spend the money responsibly. Mr. Toussaint's spokesman said this was putting a condition on paying dues and was thus cause for removing Mr. Samuelsen from a union position.

Forced the Issue

Mr. Samuelsen said that since then he has been performing his shop steward duties anyway, but that in late October Mr. Toussaint sent a letter to Track Division Recording Secretary Jack Blazejewicz stating that Mr. Samuelsen was no longer a shop steward. "I was democratically elected as a gang shop steward in May 2007 by Local 100 Track Division members in good standing," Mr. Samuelsen wrote in his charges. "If Toussaint believed that I engaged in conduct which would somehow preclude me from being a shop steward, then he should have charged me under the TWU constitution and/or Local 100 bylaws. Absent a sustained charge of misconduct, Toussaint does not have the basis to remove me, or otherwise prevent me from being a shop steward."

In his charges, Mr. Samuelsen said union members had the right to criticize Mr. Toussaint's administration and accused him of wasting union finances by handing out jobs to political allies and spending thousands of dollars per month in fees to a public relations firm co-managed by Ken Sunshine that also represents Hollywood actors and professional athletes.

Vetoed Other Signers

Mr. Samuelsen was only the first of several of the letter-signers Mr. Toussaint acted against.

Local 100 canceled a shop steward election in which signer Greg McDonald was running at the Structure Division shop at the 14th St./6th Ave. station on the F/V and L lines, and instead appointed another member to the post. It also voided a shop steward election in which signer Randy Palmenta had won at an New York City Transit iron shop in Brooklyn.

Mr. Blazejewicz, a political ally of Mr. Samuelsen who also signed the letter and has since lost release time from his NYC Transit job, wrote a letter to Mr. Toussaint last week blasting him for his actions. He accused the three-term union president of chilling free speech and subverting union democracy, and compared him to a Communist dictator.