Defend Clarence Little! Down with Toussaint, the TA’s Executioner!

On April 30, a dispute in the union office at Livingston St. between Clarence Little, EB Member from Conductor/Towers, and Eladio Díaz, a Local 100 official from Telecommunications, resulted in the latter going to the hospital in an ambulance. Little, who was on the TA payroll for Release Time, is an old ND member and now opponent of Toussaint: Díaz, who was on the Local 100 payroll, is a staunch Toussaintite. Pres. Toussaint, instead of dealing with the affair in-house, called in TA Labor Relations, the union’s deadly enemy. Union officer witnesses to the confrontation refused to give statements to Labor Relations. Toussaint sent their statements for the internal union investigation to Labor Relations, putting Little up for firing from his Conductor job.

Toussaint’s action is the worst kind of class treason! It’s criminal. From fronting for the bosses, he has gone over to openly siding with them against fellow union members. He is using the enemy of all transit workers to rid him of his factional opponents. It’s a particularly bitter irony that Toussaint turned Little in to the same Labor Relations hangmen who not so long ago had Toussaint terminated for over two years – and that Little, with others including this author, repeatedly picketed, petitioned and otherwise fought to get Toussaint’s job back! The Toussaint of that time would have spit on the person Toussaint has become.

Now we have to organize a campaign to defend Clarence Little’s job – regardless of the ins and outs of the confrontation with Díaz. Even foremen and workers, let alone fellow Local 100 members, often deal with alleged altercations in-crew, not through Labor Relations.

If nothing else, this should show the world that Toussaint is the bosses’ agent, in the most literal and concrete sense. Toussaint Must Go! And any union official who excuses, justifies or minimizes his crime shows that he or she is also the TA’s agent and the workers’ enemy: they, too, must go.