New York's Industrial Transportation Union
What is Local 100?
Local 100 is a local (or chapter) of the Transport Workers Union of America, a union that represents transportation workers in bus and subway lines, and several airlines nationwide.
The Local primarily represents 41,000 workers in the New York City public transportation system and at some private bus lines serving the New York City metropolitan area.
More about the history of the TWU and Local 100 can be found here.
Specifically, which workers are represented and where?
In the City's subway lines, Local 100 represents virtually all employees including those who operate trains, maintain the trains and tracks, staff the token booths, clean platforms and subway cars, and service and repair mechanical equipment such as elevators and escalators.
Local 100 represents most of the men and women who drive and maintain public buses buses in New York City under the umbrellas of MaBSTOA in Manhattan and the Bronx, NYC Transit Surface Division in Brooklyn, and MTA Bus in Queens and the Bronx.
We are also proud to represent workers at other private transportation firms. Among these are members at Liberaty Lines, providing commuter transportation in Westchester, Waterways, servicing New York Waterway's ferry passengers, First Transit, where our members schedule paratransit service, and several school bus companies.
How many members does the union now have?
We have about 41,000 members who are actively working at jobs we cover and about 26,000 retirees.
These workers are organized in shops, barns, yards, and depots, and the members at each location elect Union Chairs as well as Section and Vice Chairs, who provide leadership, guidance, representation in work disputes and communication with the union's staff and elected officials at the Union Hall.
Apart from the Union's seven major Departments, our staff also includes organizers (the field workers for the union), and other staff in departments like research, grievance and discipline, publications, press, political action, and family assistance.
As the first link in the chain of two-way communications between the rank and file and the Union leadership, Shop Stewards play a key role in contract enforcement and in bringing the concerns of the membership to the Union's leadership.
What is Local 100's policy on job actions and strikes?
Nobody wants a strike or job action! No responsible union takes such actions lightly or goes into them quickly and as anything but a last resort.
Job actions obviously affect the lives of our own members and, because of the work we do, the day to day lives of millions of New Yorkers.
This is one reason why no job action can be taken without an "authorization vote" among the affected members. Such votes are usually taken when the leadership feels a job action may be required and they give the leadership the power to call the action if and when it deems necessary. Job actions must also be authorized by the Union's Executive Board according to the Union's bylaws. Most of the time, the authorized action doesn't happen. Disputes over contracts can always be settled if both sides are bargaining in good faith and we have proven ourselves willing to continue good faith bargaining as long as it takes to reach agreements.
However, management doesn't always bargain in good faith and history shows that when there is no recourse to a job action, our members are ready to take it.
A union has a legal and ethical responsibility to represent its workers forcefully and without prejudice and we are committed to doing just that. Our union also feels a responsibility to all working people to ensure that public authorities such as the MTA respect their rights. We make good on our commitments.