Who Is Roger Toussaint?

Almost overnight, Transport & Workers Union Local 100 President, Roger Toussaint, shot to international fame for his defiant stand against the city and state government of New York.

Toussaint and his union’s decision to shut the ‘Big Apple’ down earned him as much criticism as it did praise this week but despite threats of jail time and huge fines, this 49-year-old Caribbean man stood strong.

So who exactly is Roger Toussaint? Believe it or not, this is not the first time Toussaint has stood up for what he believes in. It’s almost the story of his life, which began way back in Trinidad in 1956.

Toussaint, was born in Belmont, Trinidad. As he tells it, he was raised in a one-room house as part of a family of nine and from his early teens, began associating with activists and trade union organizers.

He got into ‘trouble’ at age 17 after he was arrested and expelled from school for writing politically charged slogans on the walls of school buildings proclaiming “Free Education Means Free Books.”

A year later, in 1974, he left the twin-island Republic for New York and settled in Brooklyn, where he still lives today. The young Roger enrolled in Brooklyn College to continue his education and the revolutionary spirit again took hold of him as he joined in on student protests against fiscal cutbacks for minority student programs.

After a succession of blue-collar jobs, which included work as a welder, he was hired by the New York City Transit Authority as a cleaner in 1984 but quickly moved up the ranks to become a track worker in 1985.

As he tell it, the work conditions there was a lot to dislike and he soon started the “On Track” newsletter with fellow track workers, to call attention to grievances and attack “the laissez-faire attitude of union officials.”

But it wasn’t until 1994 that he sought a formal union position. And when he did, he won overwhelmingly as leader of the 1800-member Track Division.

As a TWU Local 100 representative, he prosecuted members’ union grievances with a vengeance, quickly becoming a thorn in management’s side. Two years later, in November of 1998, the Transit Authority for being in an unauthorized car fired him during working hours. The car was hit at an intersection three and a half months earlier and he suffered neck and back injuries.

Toussaint claimed he was a passenger in the car on official union business. A routine appeal of the firing was dismissed as untimely – the first such ruling in 60 years of TA discipline.

He was returned as a TWU chairman while litigation to reinstate him to his job proceeded. In that post, Toussaint headed the New Directions-led rank and file fight for a good contract in December of 1999. He faced down threats of jail and firing, but the union leadership let the status quo continue, and a contract was passed which many members did not support.

When it came time for the union election of 2000, Toussaint became the candidate of New Directions, the activist faction of Local 100, which had been growing increasingly powerful for years. On December 13, 2000, he overwhelmed the combined votes of his opponents in a three-way race against incumbent union president Willie James.

On taking office, Toussaint and his newly-elected executive committee put through measures to reform the union’s finances, including taking a cut of his own salary by 25 percent.

Toussaint and his team of elected leaders continue to carry forward the union’s activist agenda in the areas of health care, worker safety, despite the odds. He lives in Crown Heights with his four children and wife, Donna.