A Month Late, TWU Seeks To Replenish Dues

By ARI PAUL

Transport Workers Union Local 100 has petitioned for reinstatement of automatic dues check-off, a right it surrendered June 1 as a penalty for the 2005 transit strike, the union announced Oct. 6.

The Chief-Leader/Pat Arnow PROOF OF PURCHASE?: A Transport Workers Union Local 100 member holds up his receipt for dues payment. Some members have complained that the union has been using unprofessional and sloppy methods of tracking which members have paid all their dues.

"On October 4, our lawyers filed papers in Kings County Supreme Court," the union announced in a statement. "This is the first step of many. Most likely, there will be a round of preliminary filings, a round of hearings and a round of final filings. In the course of this, the State Attorney General and the [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] will submit oral arguments or briefs. While the city is technically not a party to the case, it is possible that the Mayor may do so as well. In the end, if the court rules in favor of restoring the check-off, more time will still be needed for the MTA to put check-off back into operation."

Let Five Weeks Elapse

Local 100 lost the right to have New York City Transit automatically deduct dues from each member's paycheck for a minimum of 90 days starting June 1 as a result of its illegal, three-day strike in 2005. It has had since Sept. 1 to petition the court to have check-off reinstated. The union has offered no explanation for the five-week delay in submitting its application.

A spokesman for Local 100 President Roger Toussaint said he did not know which judge would hear the case. Theodore T. Jones, who at the time was a State Supreme Court Justice in Brooklyn, imposed the penalty on the union in the spring of 2006, but he was appointed to the Court of Appeals earlier this year.

Still Some Holdouts

For the last several months, the union has embarked on the "Save Our Union" campaign, an internal organizing drive to get members to voluntarily pay dues.

The union said Oct. 6 that slightly less than half of the 31,100 members who lost dues check-off were fully paid up as of Aug. 31, but that 76 percent have paid some portion of their dues since June 1.

Many Local 100 members have complained about the union's dues collection methods. Station Agent Joe Pollard, a dues-paying member, was accused of being in bad standing and physically forced out of the union's headquarters in July. Others have said that the union's lists of who was in good standing were inaccurate, with some political foes of Mr. Toussaint being denied access to lists of those who are behind on their payments. The receipts members receive when they pay their dues are on generic forms carrying a hand-written "TWU" or "union dues," with no Local 100 insignia.

The MTA has not yet filed papers to the court in response to Local 100.