New York, NY – TWU Local 100 and the family of retired RTO (Rapid Transit Operations) Vice President and activist Tim Schermerhorn are putting out a desperate call for help. Schermerhorn is in stage 5 renal failure and, as TWU Local 100’s website says, “needs a kidney very soon or he will die.”
While TWU Local 100 reaches out to its members and others on social media, Schermerhorn’s family has created a website: www.timmyneedsakidney.org hoping to find an acceptable donor.
“We humbly ask anyone reading this to do anything you are able to do to help us in our search for a kidney donor,” the family said in a statement. “We plead from the depths of our souls for your help. It is our fervent prayer that with your help, some how, some way, and soon, we will be gifted a kidney, and will save Tim’s life.”
The site also includes Schermerhorn’s history as an activist for Local 100 and social justice causes, just part of which reads: “Tim is the son of a Transport Workers Union opposition activist, and a lifelong Marxist. His contributions to the common causes of labor rights, racial justice and the working class cannot be overstated. For 33 years, Tim operated New York City trains and was a force within the organized life of Transport Workers Union Local 100. His actions encouraged transit workers to organize dozens and dozens of strikes, slowdowns and the like, in rebellion against the MTA. He fought and won many a grievance for TWU members, appearing and arguing in court or simply by offering advice. Tim was not a thorn in the side of the Transit Authority, but a sharp, jagged and splintery stake.
“Tim was among the founders of New Directions, a multiracial rank-and-file reform group that won TWU Local 100 leadership. Tim was a vice president when the local dramatically increased democratic participation in union affairs and helped to improve the working conditions of public employees sold out by their union’s leadership. Working at the grass-roots level, New Directions brought many African-American and LatinX workers into TWU debates from which they had traditionally been excluded. Tim’s tireless organizing, his conviction that workers must raise their voices and shape their own destiny, and his success within a multiracial rank-and-file reform group provide models and are among the best hopes for reviving the union movement.”
Tony Utano, President of TWU Local 100, said, “Tim was a passionate advocate for the members throughout his career, and a force within TWU Local 100. Everyone is pulling for him right now.”
