Acrimony Intrudes On Memorial for TWU Track Worker

By ARI PAUL

Father Stephen Carmody of New York City Transit paused his prayer April 24 to let a 3 express train roar south behind him on the same track where Track Worker Daniel Boggs, the man whose memory he was honoring, had been killed on the job exactly one year prior.

Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow REMEMBERING A FALLEN BROTHER: Father Stephen Carmody (left), a New York City Transit chaplain, reads a prayer with a crowd of Transport Workers Union Local 100 members during a ceremony marking the one-year anniversary of the line-of-duty death of Track Worker Daniel Boggs.

A dozen members and officers from Workers Union Local 100 held a brief memorial for Mr. Boggs during the evening rush hour on the uptown platform at the 59th St. station on the IRT. Father Carmody and his fellow authority chaplain, Rabbi Harry Berkowitz, officiated the swiftly planned event, as neither Local 100 nor NYC Transit held a public remembrance for Mr. Boggs, who was killed five days before another Track Worker, Marvin Franklin, met the same fate.

Whose Human Error?

Track Inspector and likely Local 100 presidential candidate John Samuelsen told the attendees that after the two deaths both NYC Transit President Howard H. Roberts and Local 100 President Roger Toussaint had said that in addition to altering and reviewing track safety rules, they needed to end instances of workers being careless with track safety.

Mr. Samuelsen contended the fault lay elsewhere: that workers were forced to work in hazardous environments because management wanted jobs done faster.

"There's a renewed effort to blame Local 100 members for fatalities," Mr. Samuelsen said. "As a rank and file, we need to challenge that rationale. Danny Boggs didn't order a train to go down the express track on a track that was out of service and under exclusive use for Track Workers. He's not the one who ordered a train to get rerouted in order to avoid a train delay."

Mr. Samuelsen continued, "Marvin Franklin, did he tell the supervisor who was flagging for him to disappear to go check on another work crew to ensure that he was getting his production? Of course he didn't."

He added that NYC Transit had not presented evidence than any Maintenance of Way worker in the last ten years had caused his own fatality.

'Pushed Under the Table'

John Chiarello, the union's recording secretary for Line Equipment and Signal members, said during the ceremony that he was disappointed that the union did not make an effort to have an event for members on the anniversary of Mr. Boggs's death. Mr. Samuelsen noted that it was common for the union to have memorials for workers killed on the job and that in some cases workers were released from their job duties to attend.

"I really feel it was just pushed under the table," Mr. Chiarello said. "I just wish more people had heard about it."

While the fatalities have rattled the union's Maintenance of Way workers, Steve Downs, a Local 100 Train Operator rep, said that the two Train Operators involved in the two fatalities have not yet returned to work, with one likely to receive a disability pension. He explained that while most Train Operators return to work after what is known in transit parlance as a 12-9, his members tended to be more traumatized when it involved their fellow workers.

"The aspect of it being a co-worker makes it that much harder for a Train Operator," Mr. Downs said. "It's not the same as someone falling in front of a train, as bad as that is."