[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 109 (Thursday, September 7, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1658-E1659]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       A GREAT POINT-OF-LIGHT FOR ALL AMERICANS, ROGER TOUSSAINT

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. MAJOR R. OWENS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 7, 2006

  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to salute a premium leader for both 
the middle class and working families. Roger Toussaint is a truly 
unique Great Point-of-Light. In December

[[Page E1659]]

2005 he led New York City's first transit strike in 25 years in order 
to safeguard the pensions and healthcare for transit workers and future 
retirees. When all of the negotiations had been completed, the Governor 
of New York attempted to set a precedent by placing a cut in future 
pension benefits for new hires. It was the opening salvo for a campaign 
to cut pension benefits for all state and city employees. In an act of 
monumental significance for future workers Roger Toussaint rejected 
this deal with the words: ``I will not sell out the unborn.''
  TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint was born in Trinidad in 1956. 
As a youth in Trinidad, he took part in the 1970 rebellion that 
targeted the vestiges of British colonial rule and challenged the 
oppressive conditions of workers, soldiers and small farmers. At the 
age of 17, Toussaint was arrested and expelled from school for writing 
slogans on school walls, including ``Free Education Means Free Books.'' 
In 1974 he came to New York. After a brief enrollment at Brooklyn 
College, during which he took part in the anticutbacks movement, he 
worked for several years as a welder prior to the closing of the 
Brooklyn Naval Yard. Toussaint was hired by the Transit Authority as a 
cleaner in 1984 and became a track worker in 1985.
  Toussaint became active on the job, joining with other track workers 
to publish ``On Track'' and to pursue a series of struggles against 
managerial arrogance and safety hazards. He did not seek a formal union 
position until 1994, when he was elected Chair of the 1,800-member 
Track Division. Already a thorn in the side of management and the 
incumbent union administration, Toussaint used the newly gained 
position to step up the struggle. In July of 1998, he was fired on the 
pretext of having been in an unauthorized vehicle during working hours, 
when the car in which he was a passenger was hit in an intersection and 
he suffered neck and back injuries. In fact, Toussaint was on official 
union business at the time, riding in a union car operated by a union 
official. A routine appeal of the firing was dismissed as untimely--the 
first such ruling in 60 years of Transit Authority (TA) discipline.
  The TA had Toussaint shadowed by private investigators who followed 
him to union meetings, to his son's nursery school, and even to 
disciplinary hearings where he defended fellow union members. 
Toussaint's firing became a rallying cry for union members who demanded 
his reinstatement. In the union election of 2000, Toussaint became the 
presidential candidate of New Directions, an umbrella group embracing 
the opposition to the incumbent regime.

  On taking office, Toussaint immediately took measures to reform the 
finances of the nearly bankrupt Local, including cutting his own salary 
by 25 percent. In March 2001 he led a successful strike at a 
Westchester bus company, obtaining landmark increases in wages and 
benefits for 700 union members. In 2002 he led the union through a 
difficult strike at three bus companies in Queens operating under city 
franchise, securing the failing health benefits for 1,500 members. At 
the end of that year, he led the union in winning a contract settlement 
that guaranteed threatened health benefits for 34,000 transit workers 
and their families and opened an array of new initiatives on such 
fronts as discipline, safety, training and childcare.
  In December 2003 he was reelected to a second term as President of 
TWU Local 100. As well as his duties at Local 100, Roger Toussaint is 
President of the Coalition of Metropolitan Transit Authority Unions and 
a New York City Employees' Retirement System Board Member. He has 
served on the NYC Central Labor Council and the Municipal Labor 
Committee. The father of five, Roger Toussaint lives in Crown Heights 
with his wife, Donna.
  For his exceptional vision and leadership courage we salute Roger 
Toussaint as a Great Point-of-Light for all Americans.

                          ____________________