Marks Anniversary of Death
TWU Honors 2nd Worker

By ARI PAUL

Transport Workers Union Local 100 held an official memorial April 29 at a downtown Brooklyn subway station in tribute to Track Worker Marvin Franklin, who died on the job one year earlier.

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James THE SITE OF THE TRAGEDY: Ed Watt (center), the secretary-treasury of Transport Workers Union Local 100, leads members in a moment of silence honoring Track Worker Marvin Franklin, who was struck and killed by a train on the G line while working at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn station last year.

Nearly 50 Local 100 members turned out for the event at the Hoyt-Schermerhorn St. station on the A/C and G lines, even though the union did not hold an official remembrance for Track Worker Daniel Boggs, who was killed five days before Mr. Franklin.

An Almost-Silent Remembrance

Local 100 Secretary-Treasurer Ed Watt officiated but said very little other than thanking members for coming and participating in a brief moment of silence. He declined to comment further after the ceremony.

The two Track Worker deaths last year resulted in various safety rule changes for Maintenance of Way workers, but Mr. Franklin had become a more public name when the New York City Transit Museum featured an exhibit of his art, which closed last month. Local 100 had provided the bulk of the funding for the exhibit, and Mr. Franklin's paintings and drawings depicted his experiences in subway trains and on the tracks. He had intended that the proceeds of his sales go to services for the homeless.

JOHN SAMUELSEN: Come together but fight harder.

Track Worker Kevin Malusson said after the ceremony that he still faced the same problems on the job his two dead co-workers did and that the joint labor/management task forces have not improved flagging rules.

"The only thing that they've done is try to enforce things that are already in the book that have been in the book for years," he said. "That's all."

Mr. Malusson said there were Federal standards for other railways that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should follow.

"I'd like to see penalties come to supervisors who knowingly put lives at risk by sending workers on the tracks in a reckless manner, you know, when it's dangerous or when they know that there's insufficient coverage," he said. "Anyone who skirts rules, they should be penalized, just like we get penalized. We get taken out of service."

Call for Outside Oversight

The union's former director of occupational safety, Frank Goldsmith, was on hand for the event and said while it was laudable that the union was working on safety with NYC Transit through task forces, it needed outside regulatory oversight to ensure safety. The union had pushed a bill in Albany establishing such regulations last summer, but it failed to find a sponsor in the State Senate after the measure passed the Assembly. A compromise bill setting up a track-safety task force was enacted instead.

"It's very important to have that type of relationship, but you can't have it without a strong regulatory arm over the shoulders of both," Mr. Goldsmith said. "This work is simply too dangerous. This is like working in a coal mine in New York City."

He continued, "Nobody in the safety and health movement has ever done a labor/management committee that has protected workers completely. You must have state, Federal legislation to protect workers' rights."

A group of union dissidents had held its own memorial for Mr. Boggs on April 24 at the 59th St. station on the 1 line, and had planned a day prior to conduct one for Mr. Franklin. It took part in the official union memorial instead.

"I think it was a beautiful thing," said Track Inspector John Samuelsen, who will likely oppose Local 100 President Roger Toussaint in the next election in 2009. "We put our differences aside and gave proper homage to a fallen brother."

Mr. Samuelsen has vocally opposed how Mr. Toussaint, a former Track Division officer with whom he was once close, has approached the issue of track safety, saying he has been too conciliatory.

Mr. Samuelsen then invoked the old union saying, "Mourn for the dead and fight like hell for the living." He added, "Those words better be more than words."