Money Well Spent

With a transit workers contract back in the news, the Daily News looks at contributions TWU Local 100 made to elected officials and others:

Transit union President Roger Toussaint shelled out millions of dollars to pass laws, lobby pols, elect candidates and win over New Yorkers — but it wasn’t enough to sell his own members.
Long before his illegal strike and the stunning rejection of his contract on Friday, Toussaint quietly launched one of labor’s most aggressive spending sprees.

Last month, for example, the Rev. Jesse Jackson applauded striking bus and subway workers for following in the footsteps of Rosa Parks and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

What he didn’t say: Transit union bosses have steered $12,000 to the Citizenship Education Fund, a Chicago-based advocacy group Jackson runs.

It goes on and on from there, of course, and all members and all parties participated, but generally, the stories read like this:

City Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) was angry. On Day 2 of the strike, he blasted the MTA as a “plantation.”

“Actually,” he told The News last week, “it’s probably healthier on the plantation.”

Asked about $4,000 his campaigns have collected from the union, he replied, “You think they bought me? I supported the workers long before I became an elected official, and I’d support them, even if they backed my opponent, because their cause is just.”