The city’s largest transit worker union paid its former president more than $220,000 in 2025 under a severance package agreed to after he was ousted one month into the year under a cloud of allegations that he pressured a female subordinate into having sex with him on several occasions and then threatened to kill her if she spoke about the encounters.
Transport Workers Union Local 100 paid out $221,386 to Richard Davis last year in salary, health and other benefits in compliance with a maintenance of employment deal the union and Davis agreed to, according to financial records. Under that agreement, Davis would be given 100 weeks of severance pay, that includes his accumulated vacation, sick time and compensatory time, and would remain enrolled in the union’s healthcare plan through the end of 2026.
Because of that agreement, Davis received a salary for a full year of work in 2025 despite resigning Jan. 31 and being replaced by current president John Chiarello.
The settlement with Davis, and its release, is the subject of a lawsuit brought by three current and former Local 100 officers. The suit alleges that Davis’ severance agreement was never presented to the union’s executive committee, even though the committee met just three days after Davis put in his resignation.
"They refused to provide that information,” said Haile DaBreo, a bus operator and Local 100 member who is one of the plaintiffs. "You should disclose this information to the members, and we should be able to approve this."
The suit seeks the release of the full agreement to the three officials.
“The agreement was presented to the union’s top officers and seven vice presidents without objection to either the union’s Executive Board or to the TWU International,” a Local 100 spokesperson said in a statement. “As the matter is currently in litigation, Local 100 will refrain from line-by-line comment, but it should be noted that severance agreements that include payment for unused paid time off and medical benefits are common.”
Davis could not be reached for comment.
Davis' resignation Jan. 22, 2025, came a day after TWU International president John Samuelson suspended Davis and set a date for an internal union trial to be held. That judicial proceeding never took place because Davis resigned, and, in a public letter penned days later, Samuelson wrote that Davis’ behavior was “appalling.”
“The International acted swiftly and decisively in accordance with the TWU Constitution, Local 100 Bylaws and Policies,” he wrote.
DaBreo argued that if Davis’ conduct was so reprehensible, the union shouldn’t keep him on the payroll.
"What the woman accused him of was so horrific,” he said. “Why are you paying him?"
John Chiarello, Local 100’s former secretary-treasurer, the second highest ranking position in the union was appointed interim president after Davis’ resigned at the end of January 2025. He was officially sworn into the union's top post in mid-February of last year.
Chiarello will finish out the rest of Davis’ original term that stretches into 2028 and is currently overseeing contract negotiations with the MTA for the union’s contract that expired in May.
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