[BREAK] Sometimes, buried under a mound of festering bad news about America, with our current Repugnant government's domestic and international garbage heaped high on the pile, there's a bit of shining glitter to be found. The fact that, after soooo much bad publicity, the working New Yorker still understands the importance of labor unions, and that media (only after first trashing that glitter) reports on it, is such a piece of beloved and much needed glitter! ===== [/BREAK]

Support for Toussaint on the streets - Newsday.com Support for Toussaint on the streets BY CHUCK BENNETT amNEWYORK October 10, 2006 It was a "challenge" amNewYork couldn't refuse. Roger Toussaint, president of the Transport Workers Union Local 100 and the man who ordered last year's three-day strike, asked for a chance to rebut a story amNewYork ran last week about his unusual re-election fundraising tactic of selling $2 autographed pictures of himself. Toussaint took umbrage at quotes from straphangers interviewed outside Penn Station who overwhelmingly gave him and his $2 John Hancock a thumbs-down. So the Trinidad native walked the streets on his turf - working-class, outer-borough neighborhoods - predicting that the cheers from working men and women would far outweigh the jeers. "They perceive me as one of them," Toussaint said. For the most part, people honked their horns, gave thumbs-up, patted him on the back, shook his hand and even asked for photographs. One woman shouted an obscenity as she climbed the steps of the 30th Avenue station in Astoria, but she was the exception. More Here