Don't Stiff TWU on Dues

Some political opponents of Transport Workers' Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint have sent out flyers urging union members not to voluntarily pay their dues when automatic payroll deduction is suspended June 1.

They offer several excuses for not contributing the money that would allow the union to keep functioning. While "my dog ate my dues money" isn't among them, it is no less valid than the reasons actually given.

The anti-dues campaign is supposed to give Local 100 members a chance to express their anger at Mr. Toussaint, or at the way in which he handled the sale of the union's headquarters last year.

Maybe the anti's believe in inflicting their own version of the Taylor Law's 2-for-1 penalty. Members actually offered a demonstration of their anger when they gave Mr. Toussaint less than half their votes in his re-election bid last December. A two-term incumbent who can't use the powers of incumbency to gain a majority vote has gotten a pretty powerful message from the rank and file.

Withholding dues as a protest would be no more productive than was voting down the contract Mr. Toussaint negotiated following the three-day transit strike, which merely delayed the payment of the same raises to Local 100 members by nearly a year. In fact, it would be worse. While the contract money was eventually recouped, the damage that could be done to the union if there is a serious loss of dues income might never be fully repaired.

Those who are considering holding back their dues because they are still unhappy with the outcome of the strike - including their loss of up to six days' pay and the revocation of Local 100's automatic dues checkoff rights for at least the next three months - are mistaken to do so. A union survey taken prior to the walkout indicated that a sizable majority of Local 100 members favored a strike if that was deemed necessary to get a decent contract. It doesn't matter whether the strike failed to go as well as many of them hoped, and shouldn't matter even to those who voted against because they believed a walkout might not be successful.

A good union has strong leadership that reflects the will of its rank and file. Mr. Toussaint was acting on the majority sentiment of his members when he made the decision to walk. Those members knew the risks involved, or should have, because similar penalties were imposed on Local 100 and transit workers following an 11-day strike in 1980.

Union members were willing to take their chances, and they subsequently took their medicine in the form of individual fines. However bitter some of them may be over that loss of pay, they would ultimately be hurting themselves if they withheld their dues money rather than arranging to have it deducted from bank accounts or paid by check while the check-off revocation is in place.

As this is written May 25, slightly less than half Local 100's 34,000 members have signed up to continue their dues payments. The other half has to remember that weakening the union will ultimately undermine its ability to represent them well at the bargaining table and in Albany on key legislation, and to provide services they count on.

If there is any point worth making by transit workers, it is that they believe in the power of the union to make their lives better, and will not evade their responsibility to support it just because an opportunity to do so has been presented. Those telling them otherwise are either consumed by personal grudges or interested primarily in their own self-advancement.