Roger Toussaint led the December 20th, 2005 New York City transit strike which lasted three days and shut down bus and subway service in the city. Toussaint was the president of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 in New York City (NYC) from January 2001 through December 2009. TWU Local 100 represents the majority of hourly employees at the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), Manhattan and the Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MaBSTOA), MTA Bus and is the largest local transportation union in the USA. As a result of this strike, the union was fined heavily and Toussaint jailed briefly. The December 2005 strike was the first strike shutting down public transportation in NYC in 25 years (the last city wide strike being in 1980). Early life Roger Toussaint was born in 1956 in Trinidad and Tobago and emigrated to NYC at the age of 17. Toussaint’s involvement in protest activities began in Trinidad and Tobago prior to his emigration. He was arrested for spray painting his school’s walls with political slogans and expelled from St Mary’s College, also called the College of Immaculate Concepcion (CIC) - the Trinidad equivalent of a high school in the United States. Arriving in NYC in 1974, he worked as a messenger on Wall Street before enrolling at Brooklyn College where he became active in student protests over cuts in financial aid for disadvantaged and minority students and allegations of racism. Protests occurred in most of the 19 colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) system in the aftermath of NYC’s “Big MAC” financial crisis of the mid 1970’s. In NYC, Toussaint was also involved in community organizing and protests over allegations of racism in the deaths of members of NYC’s minority communities involving the New York City Police Department (NYPD). He took a series of blue-collar jobs including as a welder at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Toussaint took a job at New York City Transit (NYCT) as a car cleaner in 1984 and became a NYCT track worker in 1985. In 1995, Toussaint became the Chairperson of the 1,900 member TWU Local 100 Track Division, a position held until being elected president of TWU Local 100 in December 2000, taking office on January 1, 2001. 2005 NYC Transit Strike The 2005 New York City transit strike actually began on December 19, 2005 at two private bus companies (Jamaica Buses