TWU Strike Still Reverberates

There were two significant rulings last week affecting Transport Workers' Union Local 100, although it's unclear how much either will matter in the union's upcoming elections.

A state appeals court upheld the $2.5 million in fines and the suspension of dues checkoff rights that were imposed against Local 100 for the illegal three-day transit strike last December. The union appealed the penalties imposed by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones based on the argument that it was unfairly denied a jury trial on the matter of whether it violated the Taylor Law.

There was nothing surprising about the decision by an Appellate Division panel, since the Taylor Law expressly prohibits public-employee strikes.

Several unions earlier this year tried unsuccessfully to gain an amendment that would take into consideration whether a management action was sufficiently provocative as to lessen the union's legal culpability. Absent such an amendment, however, an illegal strike is an illegal strike. A case can be made that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority shares the blame for the climate that produced the walkout, but from a legal standpoint, it is irrelevant. You break the law, you pay the price.

The other development pertaining to the union's leadership was the announcement by George Nicolau, chairman of the three-man arbitration panel picked to decide the terms of the Local 100 wage contract, that hearings in the case are ended and final briefs must be submitted by Nov. 15.

Under that timetable, the earliest a decision figures to be rendered is near the conclusion of balloting in the Local 100 election in mid-December, at a point when most union members are likely to have already cast their votes. Union leaders usually live and die politically based on the contracts they bring back, and so it might seem that the lack of a wage deal since the old one expired 10 months ago would be a problem for Local 100 President Roger Toussaint.

Mr. Toussaint apparently doesn't think so. Indications are that when the matter went to arbitration because MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow, doing the bidding of Governor Pataki, tabled the deal reached a week after the strike once it was narrowly voted down by union members, Mr. Toussaint did not press for a speedy conclusion.

There are sound reasons for his position that have little to do with the union election and much to do with the vote for Governor. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer appears to be a lock to be elected, and he is on record as saying he would have signed off on the Local 100 terms once the deal was approved in a second vote conducted by the union. That statement was grounded at least as much in the general consensus - shared by management officials including Mayor Bloomberg - that the terms were reasonable ones for the MTA, as in any pitch Mr. Spitzer might have been making for Local 100's support.

And so it's conceivable that if Mr. Spitzer wins election on Nov. 7, he might do something to ensure - even within the context of the arbitration process - that the original contract terms are implemented. There is no way of knowing how soon such an intervention might occur, however.

Mr. Toussaint has good reason to expect that the changing of the guard in Albany will be a positive development for his union. By no means can he be certain that he will be president long enough to reap the fruits of that change.

He clearly believes, though, that as matters stand, the strike is a political plus for him. Local 100 has been selling souvenirs, including an autographed photo of Mr. Toussaint marching over the Brooklyn Bridge en route to his brief jail sentence six months ago, that seek to frame the strike and its aftermath as a victory for the union, as well as a testament to its militancy. His continued tenure will depend on whether enough of his members share the sense that the stand they took was worth the penalties - which for them included the loss of six days' pay under the Taylor Law's 2-for-1 penalty - to reward him with another term in office.