Q&A
TWU representative discusses balancing labor interests with commuter van services
0:35:52
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127 sec
Alexander Kemp, representing TWU Local 100, responds to the council member's questions, emphasizing the need to balance labor interests with the operation of commuter vans. He highlights the interconnected nature of transit systems and the potential impacts on public transit workers.
- Stresses the importance of not condemning any citizen's opportunity to thrive in a capitalist society
- Expresses concerns about reducing public transit service and the consequences for workers
- Suggests that commuter vans might be seen as a supplement to, rather than a solution for, addressing issues in the transit system
Alexander Kemp
0:35:52
I just wanna be very clear that from those same communities, as the gentleman next to me had spoken about, we all do or all part of a network, and that network is a community.
0:36:05
We're all in New Yorkers.
0:36:06
And and ultimately, I never want our position as labor to ever be condemning any citizen of New York, any minority, any culture that we would wanna suppress an opportunity in America, a capitalist society, that any business should thrive.
0:36:21
I have the opportunity to thrive.
0:36:23
But we do represent labor, and we do understand the nuances of reducing service and the consequences of what that means to the lives of the people that we represent.
0:36:32
So from the time after the stock market crashed, transit has cut service and never put that service back.
0:36:39
So that issue which never being addressed by adding another mechanism to reduce more service or take away the means of fixing a broken system, how do we ever address the system that's broken by just adding mandates to it and not to suggest that the dollar bands are a band aid, but it's almost a supplement to not actually addressing what the ultimate issue is with transit.
0:37:03
So where we have one component of it where We went from 5 minute headways, a 10 minute headways to now 15:30 minutes in the bus redesign.
0:37:12
Are they addressing where dollar vans would fit at the end of a line where there was transit deserts?
0:37:17
A lot of these components are meant to actually reduce service and actually cut running time, which affects the drivers, but nobody's considering how it affects the lives of the people who are trying to buy houses, who can't afford to live in New York, who can't afford to pay rent, and we're civil servants.
0:37:31
So that that is one of the issues not directly pertaining to them, but a byproduct of something that is inconsequential to where we're all we're trying to get.
0:37:40
Right?
0:37:40
A better transit system.
0:37:41
So we are interconnected, but sometimes these bills, these sponsored bills can separate us.
0:37:46
I just wanna make sure that's not where we're heading to.
Selvena N. Brooks-Powers
0:37:49
No.
0:37:49
And I appreciate that.
0:37:50
And after Mister Morrison, Lewis, if you can also respond to the question as well.
0:37:55
I'm sorry.
0:37:56
I have to keep looking at the screen to decide.
0:37:58
Mister Morrison,
