Letters to the Editor
Hall Forgets TWU History

To the Editor:

When John Sweeney became AFL-CIO national President in 1995, he called for union affiliates to pump significant resources into new member organizing. Transport Workers Union of America President Sonny Hall jumped at the chance. Here was an opportunity to please the new labor leader who might want to consider him for a Washington position down the road.

Hall would create a new member Organizing Department, with its own director and more than a handful of organizers, in 1996.

In the bargain, there was the chance to ease out older elected and appointed officers and staff, to allow Local 100 President Willie James to recruit new blood for open leadership slots. Here was the problem. With each election the New Directions opposition group was getting closer and closer to winning. Steps had to be taken to prevent their taking control of Local 100. Out came the Vice President for Maintenance of Way (MOW), Francis X. O'Brien, and his number two, Gus Pellegrino. Gillen Hines and Bill Keating joined the organizing team from Rapid Transit Operations (RTO), among others. Hall was particularly concerned about growing New Directions strength in M.O.W. and R.T.O., two key and very large Transit Authority divisions.

I joined the team from a New Jersey local, sponsored by TWUA International Executive Vice President Frank McCann. I was serving as the elected vice president of TWU Local 225 at the time.

The International paid my dime and gave me a TWU International business card. My deal was the same as the other organizers in the unit. International funds reimbursed everybody's local.

And let's be clear about something. If McCann had been able to succeed Hall as International President by the time that Roger Toussaint and New Directions gained control of the Local 100, the troubles between the International and Local 100 would have been greatly diminished or would have disappeared altogether.

In 1996, our team was quartered in the same small room as defrocked former TWU Local 100 President Damaso Seda, who held down a sinecure as the International's Director of Special Projects. Since we were a loud and rowdy crew known as the "dirty dozen," we made his life miserable, since new member organizing is a daunting and difficult undertaking with organizers largely "in your face" people, on the phone often, and constantly shouting in the bargain.

One of the strongest players in the group was Joe Carbon from Car Equipment Division (CED). Never dead wood, Joe was working for Tom Cassano in the contracting-out unit when the two had a near-physical dispute. Joe was transferred to the organizing team, where he remains to this day. He would make an outstanding international director of organizing, combining necessary toughness, savvy, pragmatism and experience. He has been the most prolific organizer in the TWUA.

Remarkably, the organizing department succeeded in bringing in close to 20 new companies in the course of five years, with a total membership exceeding 2,500. The ranks of the Private Bus Lines swelled to over 5,000, and this organizer along with other team members negotiated many contracts from 1996 through 2001. Why Sonny Hall has chosen to forget all of this, I cannot say. We last spoke in November 2001, less than 6-1/2 years ago, not the 10 years he mentions in his letter of April 25.

What he must remember are these words that he wrote to International Director of Organizing Gus Pellegrino, a capable and adroit administrator, when I temporarily left the unit on July 21 1997:

"I am sure that you agree, Russell will be missed. While his aggressive nature can be a 'pain' sometimes, his drive and his dedication to the job is 'second to none.' Pain or not, I wish I had hundreds like him."

Thankfully, within our organizing department we do have excellent and dedicated workers who will carry on the job.

RUSS SMITH