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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Mass transit in our area, as most of you know, is in an existential fiscal crisis, and the head of the transit workers union, as you may not know, has some ideas for saving it. We'll talk to TWU President John Samuelsen now about that and about safety from COVID on the buses and trains. There was at least one survey showing reluctance among a majority of transit workers to get vaccinated despite the fact that they'll be relatively early in line. Let's welcome TWU President John Samuelsen. John, welcome back to WNYC.

John Samuelsen: Thanks for having me again.

Brian: Let's get right to the fiscal crisis. I saw your Op-Ed in the Daily News with the headline "The tax that can save the MTA. A federal bailout is necessary, but insufficient." What tax are you proposing?

John: I think a combination of new revenue sources for the MTA is vitally needed. The federal bailout is not a recurring bailout. It's going to happen one more time at best, and it'll get the MTA out of its immediate fiscal crisis, but going forward in order to maintain the system in a state of reliability and a state of good repair, new revenue sources are needed.

We've identified a couple of different things right now, and one of them is to stock transfer tax. Another idea is what the Op-Ed was about, which is multipurpose would put a surcharge on internet commerce purchases that result in the delivery. Those two items right there would generate a lot of income in terms of new revenue sources that are solely needed for the MTA.

Brian: One of those would affect people buy and sell stocks. The other would affect people buy and sell anything.

John: Not anything, the essential items would be excluded from the surcharge on deliveries, food and vitamins, medicine, that type of thing, diapers, baby formula would all be excluded. Yes. Those two items were open to talk about more things. I think at the end of the day, it's not about these specific taxes or these specific funding sources, although they would work. It's about the recognition at the MTA in New York is vital to the economic recovery of the region, and it's not going to happen unless we find new funding sources.

Brian: How much support in the state legislature, which now has a super majority of Democrats in the state Senate or already had one in the assembly? Presumably it's a pretty progressive state legislature up there now. How much support do you have, at least for the stock transfer tax, which again, presumably people who are buying and selling stocks can afford that very small tax when they buy and sell, and it would generate a lot of money for mass transit. How much support do you have? Is anybody going to carry this to legislation and get it through?

John: Yes I think there is support. Our early outreach has been remarkable in terms of the response from legislators in New York. Senator James Sanders is a big proponent of it, so he's going to carry a lot of it. Again, our early outreach has been nothing but positive. We haven't run into any interference at all, any negativity at all in Albany.

Brian: Listeners, we could take a few phone calls for John Samuelsen, President of the Transport Workers Union, which represents subway and bus workers in New York, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. I read that a majority of your members in a recent survey said they're not convinced that they would take a COVID vaccine. I heard the firefighters union president the other day, in response to a similar story about his membership, tried to convince his membership to get vaccinated. What's your position?

John: I think it's a bit of a dicey issue even with news this morning that came out of Britain, that there were folks having allergic reactions to the vaccine, of course we want to have the highest level of protection for both our members and for riders in this MTA system. I think when the vaccine comes on board and it becomes generally accepted that there's not going to be massive side effects, I think transit workers will line up and get behind acceptance of the vaccine as a method to protect the system and themselves. I think, as this flushes out, the response will change dramatically among transit workers.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Alan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Keep up the good work. I've called about this before, but it seems like a good time to revisit it. Transit benefit zone assessments or something like that seem to be essential things to talk about during COVID because the system is starving for funds. The city is a low and plan value of being depressed by the reduction in travel.

This is a time to look at a source of funding that cannot move from the city. The land values of transit properties near transit stations are disproportionately benefited by transit subsidies, but the land owners there don't pay any special premium above regular taxes to reflect that, and workers cannot afford general taxpayers, and New York cannot afford to fill in that gap.

The people who benefit most should be covering it. In the long-term, it would benefit them, but assuring a steady stream of revenue to make sure the system doesn't go away. Would you support the legislature, revisiting that as one of the major legs of transit finance rebuild here, transit benefits on assessments around expensive Midtown land?

John: We would absolutely support that. I think it's important to recognize that it's not going to be one tax, that's going to be the magic wand that gets the MTA out of this absolute unprecedented fiscal crisis. It's probably going to be a combination of elements, and certainly we would support that and are open to having a conversation about every single potential new revenue source. This is a crisis that nobody saw coming, and it's a crisis that nobody anticipated having to deal with in our lifetimes.

Brian: In your Daily News Op-Ed, you wrote, "There's no need to elaborate at great length about the importance of the bus and subway system to the regional and national economy." Despite that, that's certainly true for people in our area. Are you worried that people who live in parts of the country that aren't served by public transportation systems to the extent that New Yorkers are, might feel unaffected by a fiscal crisis in transit?

In other words, make the case for federal funding of public transportation to rural and other communities out in America, in places without major metropolitan areas. Now that Congress is seriously considering a bailout bill, or I shouldn't say a bailout belt, but the next COVID relief bill, and you don't know whether there's going to be anything or how much there's going to be for the MTA.

John: Right. I think that the stimulus package that comes has to be a bailout of all working Americans, and an investment into public transit in America is just one element of what that overall stimulus package has to look like. Certainly, working Americans in urban areas, in suburbia and in rural America must be bailed out, that has to happen. I think a multi-faceted stimulus package puts all that to rest. More importantly and more dangerously is the near entirety of the Republican delegation, having this anti-urban agenda, which they've embraced for years.

Mitch McConnell in particular, who's held up this stimulus bailout repeatedly over the last several months over state and local funding, which is actually secondary to the MTA or distinct from the MTA. McConnell definitely has an anti-urban agenda that manifests itself in his idea of what a stimulus package should look like, and that we have to overcome.

Brian: Josh in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Josh.

Josh: Yes, hi. I love the subway. I'm lucky enough to not have to take it these days. Every time I do take it, it's filled with people without masks. There's always one or two guys on every car. The last time I took it, which was about two weeks ago, the cops on the Franklin Avenue station were not wearing masks. There's not even very much signage. What I'm wondering is, why isn't that job one? If you want riders, why not focus on making it safe?

John: Yes, I absolutely agree with you. Certainly that the union absolutely, totally supports the wearing of masks in that system. It protects us, it protects the riders. It protects the overall health and viability of the system. The bosses at the MTA should make it job one, if there's a lack of enforcement, it's on the city of New York and it's on the bosses at the MTA, it's not on transit workers. We totally embrace the wearing of masks, particularly by the riders that can expose us to harm's way.

Brian: That, of course, is the vicious cycle that's causing the fiscal crisis that might cause subway service to be dramatically cut and bus service and I presume commuter rail service too and might cause 1000s of your members to be laid off from working their transit worker jobs. From what I've read, it's the vicious cycle of people not feeling safe in the subways, and on the buses, and therefore not riding, therefore revenue from fares goes so far down.

There have been studies, there was another one just last week, I'm sure you saw it, that seems to indicate COVID isn't being transmitted very much on mass transit in New York or anywhere around the world, and yet people are reluctant to believe it. The first question people ask is, "Sure, because it's pretty sparsely populated down there."

I realized that it isn't always sparsely populated. There is a rush hour and there are essential workers who have to use the trains even if they don't want to, but it's relatively sparsely populated. If everybody went back, then everybody would be face to face, even if mask to mask. The perception, at least, is that it would be risky. How do we get out of that cycle?

John: I think more of an element of that cycle is the economic situation on the ground in the city, in terms of folks being able to work from home, and just work being conducted differently than it was prior to the pandemic. I think that's one of the biggest problems that we face, the estimates going forward, that even post-pandemic ridership is only going to be at like 70% or 80% of what it was prior to the pandemic.

The insanity of what you just mentioned, which is the plan of the MTA to cut service, the insanity is that at the very moment in time when we need to invest in service and increase service to decompress the subway and bus system, they're talking about engaging in an action, which is going to severely compress the whole situation in the subway. You just mentioned people being face to face. Even a sparsely populated, as you say, subway system, and bus system, is going to have people packed into these buses and train cars if the MTA succeeds in the cuts that they're talking about. Those are totally insane.

The exact opposite approach should be taken right now, which is, what's so apparent about the necessity of a federal bailout, it has to happen. If it doesn't happen, the folks that are saying right now that the New York City transit system will be changed forever are absolutely right. The system is in a death spiral if that federal stimulus package doesn't come.

Brian: Of course, if those cuts and service take place and the demand remains low, that's a scenario under which a lot of your members could get laid off. How are you preparing for the worst-case scenario. If more federal money doesn't come, or these taxes that you're proposing don't go through, and the MTA board does go through with these major service and job cuts, what happens next? Is a strike on the table, or what other tools does your union have here?

John: Certainly I don't want to be having a conversation about a strike in the midst of a pandemic and the potential continuance or second wave of this pandemic, but transit workers are going to defend themselves, we're going to take action, we're going to fight it vigorously. In truth, I don't want to have that conversation right now, because I believe that we will get a federal stimulus package, there will be new revenue sources identified that brings funding into the MTA.

I just came back from DC actually, this morning. We're vigorously lobbying. I believe all the indicators, all that stimulus money will come, and it's one of the few areas and a few times that me and the MTA, or the Union and the MTA, have agreed, and we're working together, collectively to bring this stimulus money home for the New York City transit system. I think we will.

Brian: Let's take one call of pushback on your proposal for a tax on packages ordered for online delivery or ordered online for delivery. Negron, on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hello, Negron. Negron hung up. All right. You want to end by making that case going back to your Daily News Op-Ed, you're calling for two taxes, a stock transfer tax and a tax. It sounds like just in time for Christmas, but of course, it wouldn't be inactive until after for packages ordered online for delivery.

John: The MTA, even with a federal bailout, is stocked for money. For the first time, perhaps in my career at the MTA, they're not lying about that budget, they have a very real crisis. The truth of the matter is that even before the pandemic, the MTA did not have enough revenue to maintain the system at the state of reliability, and a state of good repair. As we saw three years ago, the subway nearly imploded into complete unreliability and a rapid state of disrepair.

Post-pandemic, we need new revenue sources. We're far too reliant on the farebox. If ridership doesn't bounce back, there's simply not going to be enough money to keep the system in a state of good repair. That's an absolute necessity. A system that's reliable and in a state of good repair is absolutely necessary for the post-pandemic comeback of New York City and New York State and the economy.

Brian: John Samuelsen is President of the Transport Workers Union, which represents New York transit workers. Thank you. Good luck to everybody.

John: All right. Thanks for having me.

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