By Gary Tilzer
“If you look at the history of the suspect who sent our union member Anthony Nelson to the hospital, you’ll throw up,’’ TWU union leader Robert Kelley, vice president of Transport Workers Union Local 100 (TWU), told a rally while standing next to the mother of the hero transit worker Nelson. Nelson was hospitalized with injuries including a broken collarbone and a dislocated nose after trying to stop a career criminal from harassing women straphangers outside of a subway station where he worked as a cleaner. At the rally, TWU’s union leader Kelley talked about Alexander Wright, the suspect in the beating of his transit union member, who has had 40 prior arrests, including knocking out with a punch in the face a 55-year-old Asian woman and throwing hot coffee on two traffic agents in Midtown last year.
“We need to up these charges,’’ Kelley said of assailant Wright. Judge Michael J. Hartofilis, who set low bail for Wright, was appointed Judge by former liberal Mayor de Blasio. The Bronx DA Darcel D. Clark who requested low bail for Wright was elected in a Soviet-style election for District Attorney. In 2015, the Bronx Democratic machine after the primary executed a series of political moves, nominating District Attorney Robert T. Johnson for a judgeship and giving his spot on the November ballot to Justice Darcel D. Clark of the NY State Appellate Court. Clark had no challengers for her reelection in 2019, both in the primary and in the General election.
“We’re tired of [emotionally disturbed people] getting amnesty [riding the subways],” said Kelley. “Our members are not safe out here.” The subway crime rate has gone up 50% since last year. The union leader commenting on the bail law said: “someone with dozens of priors should not be free to harass subway riders and brutally attack the employees who make this city move.” “The system [NY’s government] has let society down [more than] 40 times,” Kelley said during the rally and TV media appearances, while discussing Wright’s assailant’s previous arrests. “At the end of the day, these are all similar cases of assault [the bail caused crime wave] that made my workers afraid and unsafe,” Kelley said.
If you look at NYC’s near bankruptcy in 1975, it was union leaders who stepped up to save the City from destruction, when NYC’s elected officials failed to govern properly. Fifty years later, today, New York’s elected officials made the City’s subways and streets unsafe, forcing the City’s residents into wrestling matches or worse, against the mentally ill and the repeat offenders like Wright. Union leaders are the only ones with enough power, who can stop government policies that send innocent New Yorkers like TWU union member Nelson to the hospital and Wall Street workers Michelle Go and Daniel Enriquez to the City Morgue.
The City’s unions have to step up as they did in 1975 when NYC went broke and save the City again from the failures of the NY’s elected leaders who this time refuse or lack the ability to change the crime-causing bail law that puts New Yorkers in danger and further destroys the City’s economy. TWU’s Kelley in addition to other labor union leaders should involve African-American, Latino, and immigrant religious leaders to make sure any changes to the bail law affect only hard-lined career criminals. We should never go back to the racist days of sending non-violent criminals to jail who cannot afford bail. We should also not go back to the days when the violent mentally ill who needed hospitalization were warehoused or hidden in Rikers for decades until the bail reforms allowed them to wander the city streets and subways, creating victims.
TWU’s Kelley and the City’s labor leaders can draw upon the example of how the late labor leader Victor Gotbaum stepped up during the City’s 70’s financial crisis, which at the time endangered the future of the City and his union members’ jobs. Although not discussed in the media, the City’s tax base has taken a hit because of COVID and crime. Businesses are still closing, and the middle class continues to leave the City. Once the billions of federal pandemic money end in the next couple of years, union leaders will see some of their members being laid off, if the City’s economy does not improve. Crime is the main reason why subway ridership is stuck at 60%, and office workers have not returned to their offices. The City’s union leaders must understand that if the crime wave is not ended, the layoffs of their members will be even worse, as crime causes the City’s tax base continues to shrink. Kelley’s TWU has an even bigger problem of NY falling into a recession; the MTA already faces a $2.5 Billion deficit next year. Gotbaum proved that protecting the city against political failures is good for the City’s unions.
For over two decades Gotbaum was known as a table-thumping union leader, who was a tough negotiator with the City, getting his DC37 union members great contracts, and did what he had to do to save the City. As the NY Times wrote in 1975:
New York was perilously close to defaulting on its debt when several big banks threatened to close off credit unless Mayor Beame took draconian steps to cut the budget. The mayor soon called for eliminating 38,000 city jobs and denying municipal workers a planned 6 percent raise. Gotbaum, a shrewd and combative Brooklyn native who knew how to protect his members in dangerous times, began organizing the other city unions to negotiate with the mayor, governor, and bankers. Through intense negotiations and protest marches, Gotbaum, as the main negotiator for the city’s unions, clashed and then compromised and succeeded in pressuring City Hall and Albany to soften its demands in a way that New York’s union workers and bankers could accept to keep the city afloat.
In 1975 Gotbaum came to the same realization as today’s TWU union leader Kelley that the system [NY’s government] has let their workers and New Yorkers down. In 1975 Gotbaum stepped up and played a pivotal role in saving NYC from bankruptcy, helping to persuade other union leaders to compromise to save the city. The City’s 2022 union leaders must save the City from crime, which will repair the City’s economy, and prevent layoffs of their members.
In 1975 City’s Unions Sacrificed, Compromised to Save the City. This Generation of Union Leadership Lack of Vision Will Lead to Layoffs
In 1975, the UFT and other unions even put their pension money into backing the city bonds created to avoid bankruptcy. Today, most of the city’s union leaders are doing nothing to help end the crime wave that is blocking the recovery of the city’s economy, increasing the certainty of union layoffs every day.
Instead of pressuring the Assembly and the State Senate candidates, the UFT endorsed and donated to those who want to block all changes to the bail law, the UFT is keeping itself busy trying to get money for teachers who may not have students to teach. With the City’s financial health deteriorating, the UFT cynically organized a campaign to pressure the Mayor and the City Council to restore a $500 million cut in a $32 billion education budget. The budget cuts done by both the Mayor and City Council to the Department of Education reflected a 10% reduction in student enrollment in the City’s schools. The efforts to restore budget cuts are only possible this year because of the federal COVID money pouring into NYC. If future City budgets have to be reduced because of falling tax revenue, there will be teacher layoffs and class sizes will increase. UFT members will be laid off because their leaders lack the vision of the late Albert Shanker, who used the UFT’s pension funds to save the City from destruction. To limit the coming layoffs of their members, it is in TWU, UFT, and all the city’s unions’ interests to repair, as soon as possible, the harm that crime is causing the City’s economy. Unions should start helping to reduce the City’s crime rate, by no longer endorsing or donating to candidates blocking changes to the bail law.
The TWU’s past endorsements include Assemblywoman Latrice Walker, the co-sponsor of the 2019 bail law that severely limited Judges’ ability to set bail. Last year, Walker attacked Mayor Adams, when he tried to amend the bail law to allow Judges the ability to lock up dangerous repeat criminals and to place the violent mentally ill in hospitals. The Speaker of the NYS Assembly, Carl Heastie, opposes any changes to the bail law, and so do the State Senators Andrew Gounardes, Gustavo Rivera, Robert Jackson, and Congress members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez. Democratic Socialists of America party leader Councilwoman Tiffany Cabán’s entire party does not want changes to the bail law. The Working Families Party endorsed Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, whose entire party opposed any changes to the bail law.
The unions must only back candidates that allow Criminal Court Judges to lock up or send to mental hospitals repeat criminals like Wright, who attacked TWU union member Nelson. Wright also sucker-punched a 55-year-old Asian woman and was also arrested for throwing coffee in the faces of traffic cops, was arrested 40 other times, and had previously been reported to authorities as an “emotionally disturbed person three times. The positive press and public support the unions will receive for fixing the city’s crime wave will ensure the elected officials give their union members good contracts in the future.
@GaryTilzerTips
