Burgess Owens: “Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, is in jail in New York City tonight.…”

“Roger Toussaint, the president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, is in jail in New York City tonight. Toussaint's crime is that he took a stand against New York Governor Pataki's sneak attack on public employee pension benefits. When the Governor's puppet appointees on the New York Metropolitan Transport Authority Board had already reached agreement on all other items during labor contract negotiations, the Governor ordered that a cut in pension benefits be added as a new demand. Although it was a cut proposed for the future employees, Roger Toussaint said, ``No. I will not be a party to an agreement that sells out the unborn.'' Roger Toussaint would not allow the Governor to set a precedent for all future State, city, county, and later on it would spill over to Federal employees, and they would have shoved in their face at the bargaining table this precedent of having cut public employee pension benefits. A domino effect would roll right across the entire Nation, and no public employee pension benefits would be safe. ``Strike'' was the rallying cry at that moment, and that rallying cry deserves the support of all working families across the Nation. The private sector, the corporate butchers, have been carving up private employee pension benefit funds for some years now.…”