TWU DUES INTRIGUE

TWU Dues Intrigue

As part of his effort to get members to pay their dues while the union is without its right to have them automatically deducted from employee paychecks, Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint has told the chairs of the union's various divisions to close meetings to those who are in arrears.

But when Local 100 Power Division Chairman Tony Utano requested a list of members who were delinquent last week, a union staffer refused to provide it. The reason he gave was that Mr. Utano had signed a letter which questioned the spending practices of the union.

Never mind that the letter explicitly urged Local 100 members to pay dues. Never mind that there was a Catch-22 bound up in this refusal: if Mr. Utano didn't have a list of who was not current on dues payments, how could he bar anyone from division meetings?

What apparently matters to Mr. Toussaint is that some of the signatories of that letter are among his most-prominent in-house critics, and they were taking a political swipe at him even while urging fellow members to pay dues. And so while the denial of the list seems like a screwball way to achieve what should be the main objective - getting dues money at a time when Local 100 sorely needs it - it gives Mr. Toussaint a chance to punish those he views as disloyal.

Carlos Albert, a Track Division chairman who has also been at odds with Mr. Toussaint, brought bylaw and constitutional charges against the Local 100 president on this issue, accusing him of "deliberately and maliciously interfering with our ability to run the affairs of Track Division."

And even as Mr. Toussaint moves to settle scores with his critics, he has yet to file a court petition for restoration of dues check-off rights, a month after the union became eligible to do so. In the Local 100 newsletter last month, he suggested that members should not be on the edge of their seats waiting, writing, "We must move forward into the next phase of the challenge as though restoration is not on the horizon."

This made the Oct. 1 report by a Daily News political columnist that Governor Spitzer would support a union bid for restored check-off more than a bit intriguing. It attributed knowledge of Mr. Spitzer's feeling to an unidentified union leader.

This raised two possibilities: Mr. Spitzer, trying to regain his political footing after being on the defensive over the Troopergate fiasco, was reaching out to labor; or the unidentified union leader was hoping that going public about the Governor's intentions would put pressure on Mr. Toussaint to finally seek restoration of check-off rights.

There are two reasons why he might not be anxious to do so: an unwillingness to make a statement pledging not to strike again - which might be required by a judge before restoring check-off - or the belief that as long as the union keeps its head above water fiscally, there is a political advantage to disenfranchising union critics who opt not to pay their dues.

It's time for Mr. Toussaint to either act or explain why he isn't, so Local 100 members can evaluate whether he is serving their best interests.