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Letters to the Editor: TWU's Anti-Democratic Stance

Letters to the Editor
TWU's Anti-Democratic Stance


I read with interest your article (Aug. 3 issue) on Roger Toussaint's refusal to allow a democratic vote to fill the Transport Workers Union Local 100 vice presidential vacancy in Private Lines. At first, I was stunned at the seeming ambiguity in the posted bylaws that specifically mandate vacancy elections only for division officers and executive board members. Then I realized that Roger only told The Chief the part of the story that benefits him. A short history lesson is in order.

Until the year 2000, vice presidents in TWU Local 100 ran as part of a slate with the three top officers, and each was elected by the entire membership of the union. The description of the duties of the vice presidents in the bylaws, to "assist the President in the discharge of his duties," was purposely vague because the vice presidents were seen primarily as assistants to the president.

During the early decades of Local 100, division officers negotiated contracts with the various private companies that later became the Transit Authority and MaBSTOA. Since vice presidents originally had no specific job functions - they might not even really be known by the membership - it would have made no sense to fill vacancies by a vote of the whole membership.

Over time, though, the duties of each vice president became the representation of a specific department, one or more divisions of the local. Some of these departments made more sense than others - in recent decades, two of the seven vice presidents were drawn from MaBSTOA, one of whom also represented all Private Lines workers - but all shared one particularly anti-democratic feature: they were not elected by the specific members they represented. This meant that during the dissident period of 1978-82 and again when New Directions arose as a dissident force in the 1990s, whole departments were represented by vice presidents overwhelmingly rejected by the members of that department but elected by the union membership as a whole.

For years, New Directions protested this procedure as anti-democratic, but to no avail. Finally, in 2000, fearful that New Directions was about to win the general election (and thus sweep the vice presidencies), MaBSTOA and Private Lines executive board members joined with New Directions to change the bylaws to allow direct vice presidential election and to give a vice presidency to Private Lines.

New Directions pushed for these changes, even though we knew it would cost us an election sweep, because so many of us knew the sting, from experience, of being "led" by someone we had rejected, and how this illegitimacy weakened the vice president in his or her dealings with management.

Since that time, vice presidents have been elected in a similar manner to division officers and executive board members. It is clear for that reason that the vacancy procedures should also be similar. There is obviously no logical reason for the procedures to be different, or for one to be so profoundly undemocratic.

I see that Roger's rejection of a vacancy election is crafted on following the "letter of the law," not its clear spirit. But, in fact, "the letter" is not so clear. The bylaws that are posted on the TWU Web site are incorrect: for one, they do not incorporate the changes approved by the members in 2000. I wonder how many other changes they also do not include.

Frankly, I have no idea whether the failure to post the correct bylaws is accidental or purposeful. But at the very least, both sides in this dispute need to go back to the 2000 executive board minutes and see precisely what changes in the bylaws were approved; perhaps the vacancy rules were actually changed at that time. And every member should be given a copy of the actual bylaws.

Frankly, even if through an oversight the vacancy rules were not changed, there really is no excuse to deny Private Lines members the right to choose their own representatives, particularly at a time when the department is still negotiating the transition to MTA status. No excuse, that is, besides Roger's overwhelming desire for control.

Roger and the executive board should be ashamed to reject the right to representation that so clearly belongs to the Private Lines membership. It is, unfortunately, part of the tragedy that is Roger Toussaint, that has stripped Local 100 of the power and great possibilities it once had.

MARC KAGAN

Editor's note: Mr. Kagan, a former member of the New Directions Caucus, served as assistant to the president under Mr. Toussaint in 2001-02. He was fired by Mr. Toussaint in the spring of 2003.