Union Reaction Varies
Transit Safety Bill: Gain or 'Sellout'?

By ARI PAUL

As Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint flaunted the passage of a track safety task-force bill in Albany last week, workers affected by the legislation debated its significance.

ROGER TOUSSAINT: Calls bill a victory.

For Robert Zavala, a Conductor who has been working as a construction Flagman at Manhattan's Columbus Circle station, the main problem for workers on the tracks is that different divisions within Maintenance of Way follow and overlook different rules, a situation that begs for uniform standards.

Threats Trump Rules

"They don't abide by certain rules," he said of the Track Division. "Sometimes supervisors order them to do things they know are wrong but they base them on threatening them with any kind of disciplinary action."

Mr. Zavala saw the bill to create a task force including the union and NYC Transit presidents, which still needs Governor Spitzer's signature to be enacted into law, as a practical step forward. The task force would be responsible for recommending rules and inspecting compliance.

STANLEY ARONOWITZ: A forced compromise.

"They need to sit down with certain individuals and find out what they can do to better the system," he said of Local 100.

Mr. Zavala's home station is where a downtown-bound 3 train hit and killed Track Worker Daniel Boggs while on the job in April.

Mr. Toussaint was confident that the task force would set forth stricter safety regulations to protect Track Workers.

"Transit workers are heartened to see the legislation we worked on with the new leadership at the MTA pass the State Legislature," he said in a written statement.

Local 100 had publicly pushed for a bill to end NYC Transit's system of self-regulation and establish concrete regulations. That bill failed to gain a State Senate sponsor in May. The union had also been working with the MTA on language for the task-force bill, which already had the support of Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno.

Some within the union felt a task force was no substitute for regulations.

"The new bill has no teeth and does not require the MTA to enact any positive rule changes whatsoever," said John Samuelsen, a Track Inspector who co-drafted the original track safety bill during the Pataki governorship and a critic of Mr. Toussaint's administration. "The bill sells out transit workers."

Transit Indifference?

One Power Cable Maintainer at the Chambers St. station on the 1,2,3 line, who asked to remain anonymous, said that NYC Transit was unconcerned with worker safety, and he was unsure that a task force would change the situation.

"My question is, what's the purpose of the task force?" he asked. "Recently I went to flagging school for a refresher. I've been here 15 years; they've only sent me once. Only now? Why? Because people died? They should send us ever other year."

Mr. Toussaint is a former Track Worker who had long been a proponent of the original bill creating regulations. He reiterated its importance after two Track Workers died on the job in April and made it a central part of the union's legislative agenda.

A Necessary Compromise

According to Stanley Aronowitz, a Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of CUNY, Mr. Toussaint was in a compromised political position. With the loss of dues check-off and a growing dissident faction within the union, he knew that if the original bill was stalled in the State Senate, he could not come back to Local 100 empty-handed, Professor Aronowitz surmised. The new bill, though not ideal, could allow Mr. Toussaint to establish stricter safety rules through the task force, even though it allows NYC Transit to "modify" and "enhance" recommendations the task force makes.

"This is the new ploy," Professor Aronowitz said. "His political future depends on whether he can swing something on the issue of track safety. If it doesn't work, I think he's in serious trouble."