> Last night on Broadway I heard a guy with what sounded like a Haitian
> accent saying that Toussaint should go back to his country and deal
> with the problems there, of which there were many.
Apparently, in his younger years, he was a social fighter in Trinidad.
I can't attest to the reliability of this source
http://search.co.tt/trinidad/rogertoussaint/
but the piece has the signature of AP's (and NY Post's?) Lukas Alpert.
(And not clear whether this refers to recent or older events -- no year in the date.):
* * *
Roger Toussaint - NY Transit Workers' Chief an Activist
NY Transit Workers' Chief an Activist Fri Dec 13, 1:40 PM ET
By LUKAS I. ALPERT, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK - Whether protesting the government in his native Trinidad as a teen or battling public officials as head of the city transit workers union, Roger Toussaint does not back down.
Toussaint, 46, has emerged as a key figure in the fierce negotiations over the next contract for 34,000 bus and subway drivers in the Transport Workers Union Local 100.
Toussaint's election in 2000 "was a pretty clear indication that union members wanted someone who was less accommodating to management," said Richard Steier, editor of The Chief, a weekly newspaper that follows public employee unions.
Toussaint reigns in the mold of legendary transit union boss Mike Quill, who greeted Mayor John Lindsay on inauguration day 1966 with a 12-day transit strike. Like Quill -- who, in a thick Irish brogue, consistently mispronounced Lindsey's name as "Linsley" -- Toussaint has become an irritant for current Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
"Mayor Bloomberg should shut up," he said after the mayor called for heavy fines against the union and its members in case of a strike next week.
Toussaint has promised to bring his experience as an activist in Trinidad to the nation's largest city.
"I stood my ground down there, and I am not going to back down to fear and intimidation tactics by the transit authority," he said.
Born in 1956 in the British-ruled country, Toussaint was one of nine children in a one-room house. As a teen, he became active in fighting the postcolonial regime that took over in 1962.
He was arrested at 17 for writing "Free Education" and "Free Books" on walls near his school. After leaving Trinidad a year later to escape its "atmosphere of harassment and retaliation," he landed in Brooklyn.
At Brooklyn College, he joined protests against cutbacks and supporting minority student programs. A welder at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Toussaint joined the Metropolitan Transportation Authority when the city's shipping industry dwindled.
He started as a cleaner in 1984, moving up to track worker. The gadfly soon became an annoyance to both the MTA and the union, creating a newsletter that aired workers' grievances but criticized alleged union inaction.
Toussaint didn't hold an official union post until 1994, and only rose to power with the help of an anti-establishment union faction. That movement gained momentum in 1999 after criticizing leadership for agreeing to the contract that expires Monday.
"They were very critical of their predecessors," said Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign commuter group. "They really felt the old leadership wasn't being aggressive enough."
The contract was ultimately ratified, but Toussaint easily ousted union chief Willie James the following year. The union was soon walking a harder line — including last weekend's vote by members to authorize a strike if contract talks fail.