More than 3,000 Local 100 members rallied outside of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Public Hearing at the Fashion Institute of Technology in Manhattan on Thursday evening. A large contingent of high school and college students joined the Local, vociferously protesting the MTA's planned elimination of student MetroCards.
The MTA has threatened to hike fares, cut service, layoff hundreds of workers and eliminate free student MetroCards. On March 1, more than
1,000 workers received a letter in the mail from the MTA explaining there would be a "Reduction in work force," but that it was not a lay-off notice.
That letter says that MTA Chairman Jay Walder doesn't care what caused the Authority's financial crisis, but that he wants transit workers, students, the elderly and the New York public to pay for it, Local 100 John Samuelsen explained at the rally.
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