TWU Advance Team on the Ground in Puerto Rico

A TWU Local 100 advance relief team has been on the ground in San Juan, Puerto Rico since Saturday, Oct. 14, 2017. The three-person crew is meeting with local government officials and representatives of the AFL-CIO to make arrangements for the arrival of the first team of 15 TWU Local 100 volunteers to help in the hurricane recovery effort. Local 100 President Tony Utano dispatched Administrative Vice President Nelson Rivera, TAS Division Chair Willie Rivera and Vice Chair Armando Serrano to handle this important assignment. "We didn't want to just blindly send our members down there without knowing where they are most needed and what the living conditions would be," said Utano. 

The new Local 100 President said that a team of member/volunteers will be sent as soon as possible to help in the recovery for a two-week period. 

 
The union and the MTA have agreed to share the costs associated with the effort. Early reports back from the advance team paint a devastating picture of destruction and need.
"All power in San Juan is being provided by generators," reports Willie Rivera. "There is no electricity. There are no street lights and all of the traffic signals are down. The food markets have major waiting lines, the ATM lines are huge and water bottles are scarce. Lanterns are in major demand among those we have met. However, the people are pretty much in good spirits and energetic, and pass their time helping each other."

The TWU team has met with the Mayor of San Juan, Carmen Yulín Cruz,

 as well as officials from the AFL-CIO and other local unions to discuss logistics and to determine where the Local 100 volunteers can be most helpful. They have also met with a few TWU Local 501 members, who are employed by American Airlines at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan. 

Rivera reports that local union members are providing a major assist in the recovery. "They have been working almost nonstop with their communities feeding them and clothing them. They told us of their experiences during the storm and what they have been doing to normalize their lives," said Rivera. 

Rivera said that the team was able to locate the grandmother of a Local 100 member in New York who hadn't been able to contact her since the storm. The news was good. "One of our members called us worried about his grandmother who he hadn't heard from. He was concerned that she would run out of her insulin. We were able to drive to Santurce, found her and her son and made sure she was fine."

Rivera said that he, Nelson Rivera and Armando Serrano will try to get to more remote parts of the Island to see if TWU volunteers would be helpful there.