3 Running In TWU Election Not on Ballot

By GINGER ADAMS OTIS

A misprint on approximately 2,000 election ballots sent to transit workers in the Train Operators Division required a second round of voting for some members of Transport Workers' Union Local 100.

RICHARD BORISH: 'May dilute vote totals.'

According to Richard Borish, a Rail and Bus United candidate for vice president of the union's Rapid Transit Operations division, the ballot for Train Operators in the B division of RTO dropped the names of three individuals running for executive board positions as part of his slate.

Samples Okay, Finals Not

Train Operators Richard Washington, Wayne Halloway and Barbara Francis were listed correctly as executive board candidates for Division B on the sample ballots posted on Local 100's Web site. But their names didn't make it to the final ballots that were sent to union members Nov. 20.

Ballots must be filled out and returned to the American Arbitration Association no later than Dec. 15. The union's election committee mailed corrected ballots to Division B members Nov. 24.

Sample ballots were read and approved by each slate before the union printed them to ensure that no mistakes were made.

But Mr. Borish said the error didn't appear on the sample ballots that he had initially approved for the Train Operators' B Division.

"What happened is that the names of the three people running for executive board as Train Conductors got printed twice," he said. "Once in the correct spot, and again where the Train Operators' names should have gone."

Doubled Their Chances

Mr. Borish said Conductors Benita Johnson, Mel Archer and Virginia Cooper were mistakenly listed as executive board candidates for both Train Operators and Conductors.

The affected ballots went out to approximately 2,000 union members in the Train Operators' B Division.

Mr. Borish said he realized the mistake Nov. 22 and tried to contact the Local 100 election committee, but could not because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

"We will have to do a re-vote, and that could dilute the vote from this division because some people will have voted already once and can't be bothered to go through it all again," he contended.

The entire Train Operators' division, which including IRT Operators numbers approximately 3,300, had twice voted down the post-strike contract offered by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Mr. Borish said approximately 1,800 members voted no and 700 voted yes in the first contract vote taken after the strike. The contract was voted down by just seven ballots out of more than 22,000 cast.

During a re-vote taken in April, the division voted no again, but by a slimmer margin: 1,200 no and 1,000 yes, according to Mr. Borish. There was no way to determine which votes were from Division B Train Operators and which from IRT, but Mr. Borish said the deal's terms were unpopular throughout the department.