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PEP March 2006
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Public Employee Press

Willie Tucker: 48 years at DOT and going for more

Willie Tucker Sr. remembers riding the back of the bus along dusty roads as he traveled home to Tennessee in the early 1950s. The Korean War, where he served as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division, had just ended and racism was rampant in the United States and particularly in the Jim Crow South.

Tucker made his way north to New York City and took a job with the Dept. of Transportation.

Last November DOT Commissioner Iris Weinshall and the Labor-Management Quality of Work Life Committee honored Tucker for reaching a milestone — 48 years on the job as a civil service employee.

“My goal is to reach 50 years, and then I think about retiring,” said the spry septuagenarian. Tucker spent decades maintaining the streets of New York.

He worked his way up to Supervisor, and is a member of DOT Supervisory Employees Local 1157. His current assignment is at the outdoor garage under the Pulaski Street Bridge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

“There’s a junkman’s fortune here,” said Tucker, who makes sure the aluminum and metal from wrecked cars and crushed guardrails aren’t stolen and sold to nearby junkyards for instant cash.

Back in August, after labor-management meetings, Blue Collar Division Council Rep Bill Fenty said the agency agreed to build Tucker a shelter to protect him from exposure to the harsh elements. Before this progress, Fenty said, Tucker sat on a milk crate at the garage entrance with his clipboard under his arm in the summer heat.

Although the garage assignment didn’t offer the same challenges — or overtime pay — as removing World Trade Center debris, Tucker said, “I never refuse an assignment. I do whatever I’m asked, otherwise I’d risk being fired and losing everything I’ve worked hard to get.”

Tucker admits that he has seen a lot of hostility in his lifetime. Still, every morning he is on time and ready to work. With an iron will, honed in the military and as a union member, Tucker added, “As long as I am in good health I will stay on this job until I am ready to go. Retirement is a personal choice. No one did anything to get me here so it makes sense that I go out on my own terms.”

— Diane S. Williams

 

 

 
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