Accuse Toussaint Of Freezing Out Critics;

Accuse Toussaint Of Freezing Out Critics
By ARI PAUL

Track Inspector and union dissident John Samuelsen believes Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint has undermined elected union officials' power by giving their duties to staffers, and he wants the TWU International to do something about it.

ROGER TOUSSAINT: Say he politicizes release time. Mr. Samuelsen filed a bylaw charge last year against the then-vice president of Local 100's Maintenance of Way (MoW) Division, Julio Rivera. Mr. Rivera had allegedly countermanded the union Track Division chairman's assignments for release time and handed over duties meant for elected officials to union staffers.

"He wrote a letter to management not to accept release time changes from the chairman," Mr. Samuelsen said.

Points Finger At Toussaint

While Mr. Rivera is no longer in that job - Charles Ayala is the acting vice president of the division - the charge is aimed at Mr. Toussaint, said Mr. Samuelsen, because Mr. Toussaint continues to deny release time for elected union officials who did not run on his slate in the last election, and instead delegates their union duties to paid staffers.

JOHN SAMUELSEN: Toussaint repeats foes' abuses. The bylaw charge went nowhere, according to Mr. Samuelsen. He sent an appeal to the International Appeals Committee of TWU Aug. 18, 2006. Last month, Mr. Samuelsen wrote a letter to the TWU International asking why the committee has not taken action on the appeal in the last year.

TWU Administrative Vice President Mike Bakalo, who is handling the appeal, did not comment on the year-long delay in ruling on the appeal.

The argument in the appeal rests on an ironic precedent: in 1997 and '98, Mr. Toussaint, then the Track Division chairman, fought a similar battle against then-Local 100 MoW Vice President John Mirrione and union staffer Jack Frohlich.

'A Blatant Violation'

"As of December 21, 1997, John Mirrione and Jack Frohlich have caused every elected Track Division Officer on release time to be replaced by persons who are not elected Division Officers," Mr. Toussaint wrote to then-Local 100 Recording Secretary Julia McMillon in 1997. "This is a blatant violation of the policy of the Local 100 Executive Board on the assignment of release time, effective since February 4, 1996."

Democracy Advocate

Mr. Toussaint continued to address the conflict. He issued leaflets insisting that Mr. Mirrione systematically kept elected officials from New Directions, a now-defunct Local 100 dissident group opposed to the reign of then-President Willie James, from getting their release time and instead assigned their work to staffers to undermine the opposition. One leaflet Mr. Toussaint helped design was titled "Mirrione to Track Membership: 'To Hell With Your Election!''' He also helped organize a protest, which was eventually called off, at Mr. Mirrione's Long Island residence.

Mr. Samuelsen insisted that Mr. Toussaint has grown increasingly frustrated with dissenters inside the union, especially within the Track Division, where Mr. Toussaint comes from.

"Toussaint has become everything and worse of what he fought against in the '90s," Mr. Samuelsen said.

Mr. Samuelsen was Mr. Toussaint's ally until late 2005, when he was fired from his position as acting vice president of the MoW Division after he suggested Mr. Toussaint table discussions on a sale of Local 100's headquarters until after a new wage contract was negotiated. Mr. Samuelsen, a shop steward who works out of the 45th Street station on the R line in Brooklyn, ran for Local 100 secretary-treasurer in last December's election on the opposition Rail and Bus slate, but lost to Mr. Toussaint's ally, incumbent Ed Watt.

Critic: Gone Authoritarian

Herman Benson, the secretary-treasurer of the Brooklyn-based Association for Union Democracy, agreed that Mr. Toussaint originally advocated for democratic institutions in Local 100 when he ran for president with New Directions in 2000. As a New Directions candidate, he said, Mr. Toussaint was progressive and charismatic, but has since come to stand for practices he once publicly and popularly deplored, including the granting of release time to paid staffers rather than elected officials.

"He's been a typical authoritarian model of the union top who does not like criticism and who will do anything to push aside dissidents," Mr. Benson said. "The problem for Toussaint is that he's in a union which has a long history of independent-minded people speaking their piece."