Razzle Dazzle: Faith Holds Toussaint’s Fate

Razzle Dazzle
Faith Holds Toussaint's Fate

By RICHARD STEIER

The Transport Workers' Union Local 100 election will be concluded this Friday with one irony that, given the two leading contenders' own inconsistencies, seems fitting: the undecided union contract that has driven the bitter contest is likely to be issued shortly after the final ballots are cast.

Local 100 President Roger Toussaint is said to be convinced, based on both the strong approval of his negotiated-but-shelved wage contract when it was submitted for an April re-vote - three months after it went down by seven votes out of more than 22,000 cast - and a September poll of his rank and file, that he retains enough support to win a third term.

But, referring to the man regarded as his leading challenger, Barry Roberts, one union insider said, "Roger is exuding confidence, but so is Barry."

There are three other candidates in the race - Mike Carrube, Ainsley Stewart and Anthony Staley - but all are considered longshots, even as they have attempted to portray Mr. Toussaint as someone who wasn't tough enough in his dealings with New York City Transit and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. They contend that his biggest mistake after leading a three-day strike a year ago was ending it without securing a concession-free contract.

COUNTING ON REVISED OPINIONS: Transport Workers' Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, whose political future seemed threatened when members in January voted down the wage contract he negotiated, hopes that enough of them have revised their thinking about the still-unresolved deal to elect him to a third term. The sticking point in that deal was the requirement that members pay 1.5 percent of their earnings toward their health premiums, something Mr. Toussaint considered preferable to accepting an inferior pension plan for future members.

Likely to Be Part of Award

That giveback is expected to be a component of the contract award that is soon to be issued by arbitrator George Nicolau. The only real drama in Mr. Nicolau's decision, based on Mr. Toussaint's remarks at a State Assembly hearing two weeks ago, involves the elements of the torpedoed contract that ensured full health coverage for Local 100 members who retire between 55 and 65 and a pension refund for those who contributed a greater portion of salary to the retirement system between 1995 and the beginning of 2001.

Past practice would seem to ensure that if those pieces of the deal are not in Mr. Nicolau's award, he will have substituted other items of equal value, although the benefits may not be to the same advantage of more-senior employees.

Whatever the actual terms, though, the timing of the award represents perhaps the biggest paradox. Mr. Toussaint, who preferred a strike to arbitration because giving the contract to a third party took it out of the hands of his members, will have his fate decided before that award allows for an assessment of whether the ends justify his choices.

During the debate last month at which a couple of his foes accused him of shutting out not only executive board members but his rank and file from the negotiating process, Mr. Toussaint contended that more union members took part in contract bargaining and contingency activities than there were automobile workers getting preparation for the renowned sit-down strikes in Flint, Michigan in the 1930s.

But as he made clear in an interview with the Daily News just prior to the debate, he knew before ending the strike that he was going to make the health-benefits concession but did not inform his members that this would be part of the package. Playing his cards close on that aspect of the deal may not have been what Mr. Toussaint was referring to during the debate when, lamenting the way in which contract information was communicated to his members, he said, "Clearly there were some weaknesses." But the negative original vote on the terms was evidence that he would have had a much-tougher time ending the 60-hour walkout if he had informed the strikers that they were being saddled for the first time with a share of their health-benefit costs.

'Don't Play With Strikes'

Mr. Toussaint has frequently spoken of his efforts to get members more involved in the union, but that was one instance where he felt compelled to make a decision without filling in the blanks for his troops. His comments shortly after the contract was voted down made clear that if he hadn't known it before, the reaction to the strike brought home the dangers he had courted beyond the losses suffered by members and the union for violating the Taylor Law.

Arguing that some critics within the union believed they could have prevailed without incurring serious damage if they had stayed out long enough to bring greater pressure on MTA, state and city officials as Christmas grew closer, Mr. Toussaint said, "You don't play with strikes. Don't go there unless you have to, because you can't afford to lose a strike. That was the lesson of PATCO," referring to the decertification of the Air Traffic Controllers union after President Reagan in 1981 fired its members for striking.

He made it sound as if he conceived the strike as a guerrilla operation, designed to hit fast and then slip away rather than dig in and risk getting pounded over a longer haul. But while the unsuccessful 11-day transit strike in 1980 offered one lesson in the law of diminishing returns, the two most successful walkouts in the city's history - in 1966 by transit workers and two years later by Sanitation Workers - were the result of employees staying out long enough to turn public sentiment against management officials who they came to conclude were depriving citizens of essential services.

Of course, the mood regarding organized labor has changed dramatically over the past four decades, but Mr. Toussaint knew that when he took his troops out. And so one of the unanswered questions of the walkout is why, knowing it would be difficult to replicate the success of the 1966 strike, he concluded it was still his best option, despite having arbitration - which was not guaranteed 40 years ago - as a fallback.

Treachery Within

What Mr. Toussaint may not have anticipated was the resistance from within that he encountered, both from then-International TWU President Michael O'Brien and from several prominent members of his executive board led by Mr. Roberts.

Mr. O'Brien might as well have turned a hose on the strikers by releasing a statement on the first day of the walkout noting that the job action was launched over his objections and reminding Local 100 members of the court injunctions that obligated them "to cease any and all strike or strike-related activities and to report to work at their regularly assigned work hours and work locations." Earlier this year, he resigned his position, ostensibly for health reasons.

On the second day of the strike, a petition was sent to Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Toussaint, with Mr. Roberts's signature the first one among a group of 22 Local 100 officials from its MaBSTOA Division, stating that members "want the opportunity to decide their fate by voting on the package presented to the e-board," referring to the last offer made by the MTA before Mr. Toussaint sent out the troops.

Undercut Toussaint

Mr. Toussaint shortly after the strike cited both Mr. O'Brien's statement and the petition as undercutting his bargaining position by allowing the MTA to feed the tabloid perception of him as a buccaneer whose recklessness had sparked a mutiny by his subordinates.

Mr. Roberts and Mr. O'Brien, as the Local 100 leader noted, both had extensive ties to Sonny Hall, the retired president of both Local 100 and the TWU International, whose clashes with Mr. Toussaint on the eve of the 2002 union contract talks had been an inglorious beginning to the end of Mr. Hall's union career.

The paradox of Mr. Roberts's ticket in the election is that, while he could be accused, based on that petition, of being a guy the MTA could happily embrace, his No. 2 man, John Samuelsen, is one of the more militant officials in Local 100 and, until late last year, an ally of Mr. Toussaint's. It was his falling-out with the Local 100 leader, which came to a head over the sale of the union's West End Ave. headquarters, that may have been the knockout punch for the contract. Mr. Samuelsen campaigned fiercely against it because of the health-care giveback, and his past advocacy on behalf of transit workers had developed enough respect for him within the ranks that his position undoubtedly swayed a lot more than seven votes.

Would Odd Couple Last?

But Local 100 voters casting their ballots have no way of knowing what they're getting if they choose the Rail and Bus slate: Mr. Samuelsen's militance or a walk on the mild side with Mr. Roberts. And all too often, marriages of political convenience don't last through the first term in office.

Then again, Mr. Toussaint has burned countless bridges with former supporters who at the time that his New Directions slate gained power six years ago seemed to share both a philosophy and long-term goals. During the last election, the gaining of five vice president spots by his political rivals suggested that, while he maintained enough support to win his own re-election handily, he hadn't yet delivered enough to a demanding rank and file to consolidate his power in the union.

Now, when the strike has made him as recognizable as any city union leader - and probably alternately revered and reviled more than any of them - Mr. Toussaint is fighting for his political life at Local 100. He survived the caldron of last year's strike, only to be thrown back into the fire when the contract was voted down.

There is the prospect of a less-tense, if not necessarily less-contentious, relationship with management as Eliot Spitzer prepares to succeed George Pataki as Governor, bringing with him changes in how the transit system deals with its employees. That, combined with the imminent arbitration award, could make the job of Local 100 president less of a grind, and ease the pressure from within the union as well.

Whether Mr. Toussaint is the one who benefits from the likely improvement in the climate, though, will come down to whether enough of the members who forsook him when he insisted the contract he brought out of the strike was the best one available have since regained their faith in his leadership.

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