Workplace safety dominated the morning session of the 27th Constitutional Convention with International President John Samuelsen saying prosecutors need to “lock up” unhinged riders and passengers who assault TWU members.
“We need urban district attorneys to lock up violent people,” Samuelsen said. “We’re not the punching bags of freakin’ psychotic people.”
Samuelsen held up Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez as an example for other prosecutors to follow. Gonzalez’s office is currently prosecuting a case against a man who stabbed a Local 100 Train Operator. He is expected to be sentenced to 15 years in prison, the longest sentence for attacking a transit worker in NYC.
“We’re sending a clear message that if you attack a transit worker, there will be significant consequences,” Gonzalez, who spoke to delegates at the convention, said.
Samuelsen also asked Gonzalez to meet after the convention in Brooklyn for his legal expertise on possible strategies to better protect TWU Flight Attendants from assaults.
Samuelsen made his remarks after a contingent from Local 234, including President Will Vera, Section Chair Letita Warren, and former Local 234 President Brian Pollitt stood in support of a resolution that acknowledged gains the TWU has made in terms of worker safety – while also stressing the work is far from done. The resolution commits the International and locals to keep striving every day for additional measures to protect all Air, Rail, and Transit division workers from harm.
Warren was Bus Operator Bernard Gribbin’s Section Chair. Gribbin was shot and killed in 2023 by a rider who has been declared mentally unfit to stand trial in Philadelphia.
“We all miss Bernard,” an emotional Warren said at a convention floor microphone. “He was a military veteran, a really great and funny guy. For this young woman to take his life for nothing was ridiculous.”
Local 234 and the International waged a contract battle last year against transit officials in Philadelphia and won a commitment to have bullet-proof Bus Operator compartments installed on SEPTA buses.
Delegates also heard from FTA Administrator Marc Molinaro, who previously was a close ally of the TWU while he served in Congress representing New York. Molinaro pledged to work with the TWU to improve safety on transit systems across the country.
“No employee should ever clock into a shift fearing physical attack, verbal harassment, or provocation,” Molinaro said. “We want every transit employee to return home safely.”
Molinaro also called Samuelsen “one of the great, great leaders in the American labor movement.”
In the afternoon, delegates unanimously passed a resolution honoring TWU veterans and condemning third-party benefits administrator Segwick, while also hearing committee updates from the Veterans Committee and Working Women’s Committee.
And a special video recognizing the 50th anniversary of TWU Local 556 and Southwest Flight Attendants was played. The video chronicled efforts by Flight Attendants in the early days of the airline to fight for better working conditions, notably the elimination of a requirement to wear “hot pants” at all times while working.
Guest speakers included television journalist Ed Gordon and Melissa Stockwell, the first female soldier in the Iraq War to lose a limb and a two-time Paralympic triathlete.