John Samuelsen

John Samuelsen (born 1967 or 1968) is an American labor union leader who has served as president of the Transport Workers Union of America since 2017.

Biography Born in Brooklyn, Samuelsen became a track worker on the New York Subway and joined the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) in 1993. In 2009, he was elected president of the union's Local 100, in which role he negotiated an agreement covering 38,000 workers.

Samuelsen was elected as president of the TWU in 2017, its youngest leader since Mike Quill. He was also elected as a vice-president of the AFL-CIO.

Samuelsen was re-elected as president of the TWU in 2025, running unopposed. In 2025, he called New York Mayor Eric Adams, "Judas Iscariot", for calling for a phasing out of horse-drawn carriages in New York. He joined NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's transition committee in November 2025.

As head of the TWU, he has supported legislation mandating that MTA subway trains have a two-person crew. Critics described two-person crews as costly and unnecessary, as most of the world’s major train lines have either one-person crews or have moved to full automation.