TWU Neglects Duties

To the Editor:

With all due respect, TWU International President James Little (Feb. 1 letter), you stood by and never intervened as the Roger and Ed Show lost $10 million of TWU Local 100 members' money on capital gains by not purchasing a new building in the time legally allotted after selling our union hall. Both yourself and the Roger and Ed Show have a duty to manage the funds and property of the union solely for the benefit of the union and its members in accordance with the union's constitution and bylaws.

The incompetents running Local 100 go after members vigilantly - as they should - for union dues, but they allow Ed Watt to throw $10 million away on capital gains.

President Little, in your own letter you refer to charges by his critics that Roger Toussaint's decisions "in assigning union representatives to certain positions were unwise or worse." What do you mean by worse? Could you mean outright wrong? This matter has been appealed to you, but you decided the members are not entitled or competent enough to choose their vice presidents.

You also state that "the proper party to correct alleged lack of judgment or abusiveness is not the international, but the members of the local voting for officers in their local elections."

Who are you kidding? The members have voted, and all the winners who opposed Roger are being denied release time while Roger's flunkies who got crushed in the elections are out on release time. So you stand by and allow your largest and flagship local to have its election process thrown in the garbage.

Do you remember working on the 2005 contract which the members voted on and rejected, only to have it rammed down our throat with the 1.5 percent and ever-escalating "Toussaint Tax''? I would like to use this forum to ask you both, President Little and President Toussaint, to explain why the 1.5-percent health-benefit payment was increased to 1.5307 percent and is set to go up again in May. Why did it go up and what is the formula? I asked Roger this question via fax on Oct. 27, 2007 and I asked both of you on Nov. 4. I also e-mailed you on Jan. 24, yet I have no response from either of you. Can either of you Presidents explain this increase to the members?

For the record, President Little, stop inviting Roger or Ed to London, France or Bali, Indonesia until they deliver a contract for our brothers and sisters in Private Lines. There is no need for Roger and Ed to visit the tracks in London when we have plenty of tracks here that they are welcome to visit, especially while the members of Private Lines have no contract despite being sent out on strike before the rest of us.

As for the summit on global warming in Indonesia, how about you guys fixing the climate in Local 100?

THOMAS CREEGAN, Chairman, Power Distribution