TWU Dues Bid Denied Despite MTA Support;
Judge Demands Full Board Pledge Not To Strike Again

By ARI PAUL

Rejecting both the union's petition and the employer's plea for a compromise, a Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Nov. 8 refused to reinstate automatic dues checkoff privileges to Transport Workers Union Local 100 until its president and executive board members flatly state the union will not strike again.

MAYOR BLOOMBERG: Gratified by decision.

While the Metropolitan Transportation Authority offered a "middle ground" solution of conditionally restoring dues check-off, which was suspended June 1 as a punishment for the union's three-day strike in 2005, Justice Bruce Balter concurred with the Bloomberg administration's amicus argument that Local 100 President Roger Toussaint's statement in court papers last month that he recognized that strikes by his members were illegal was simply not good enough.

'Just Parrots the Law'

"The Court finds that the affidavit submitted by Mr. Toussaint merely parrots the statutory language in order to comply verbatim with Justice [Theodore T.] Jones' order," he said in his written decision. "Thus, taken as a whole, Mr. Toussaint's statement is nothing more than a general acknowledgement that the Taylor Law prohibits Local 100 from striking; as such, the court finds that the submission lacks credibility and renders the motion inadequate."

STANLEY ARONOWITZ: Ruling too severe.

Both the MTA and the union stated that reinstatement of dues check-off would aid the already improving relations between the two parties. Local 100's lawyers had argued that Mr. Toussaint's statement was sufficient and that forcing the union to swear off striking completely would be a violation of the First Amendment.

Following the ruling, the MTA issued a statement saying that its "commitment to productive labor management relations remains undiminished."

Mr. Toussaint vowed to appeal a decision he characterized as wrong. "Unfortunately, this matter has become a political football," he said in a statement. Labor expert Stanley Aronowitz, a Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, believed the decision was excessive.

'Crippling the Union'

"In this world, where unions are forced to pay huge sums to defend their members at endless arbitration hearings, and must pay a fairly large number of union officials at all levels of the hierarchy, to deprive TWU of dues check-off is tantamount to crippling its ability to adequately represent members," he said.

Then-Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Theodore T. Jones 18 months ago ordered that dues check-off be revoked for at least 90 days starting June 1 of this year as a result of the union's three-day strike in December 2005. He stipulated that Local 100 could petition for reinstatement as of Sept. 1 "upon a showing of good faith compliance with the mandates of the Taylor Law, and submission of an affirmation that it no longer asserts the right to strike ..." The union waited until Oct. 4 to file a petition, with an affidavit from Local 100 President Roger Toussaint saying that he recognized that state law forbids strikes.

During oral arguments Nov. 7, Local 100 General Counsel Walter Meginniss told the court that the union had suffered a financial hardship with the loss of dues check-off and that Mr. Toussaint's comments were sufficient for reinstatement.

'Unequivocally Asserted'

"He said unequivocally that it does not assert the right to strike," Mr. Meginniss said. "In the affidavit, it complies, specifically, verbatim, to the statutes Justice Jones referred to."

Joel Graber, an Assistant State Attorney General representing the MTA, argued that conditionally restoring dues check-off would allow the union to properly operate as a bargaining unit while giving the court the flexibility to reinstate the revocation of automatic dues deduction in the event of a strike threat.

"It protects the public," he said. "Let's deter. Let's not continue to punish."

Noting that restoring a steady cash flow into the union would make labor/management relations more harmonious, the MTA sought a firmer affirmation from the union that it would not go on strike again. It argued that for Mr. Toussaint to simply recognize the weight of the Taylor Law was treating reinstitution of dues check-off as a "rubber-stamp process."

Union: Unfair Standard

The MTA in its written arguments claimed that this was how the court addressed the union's hardship following the October 1982 loss of dues check-off prompted by its 11-day train strike in 1980. However, the union countered that the MTA's expectations were unprecedented and that its "middle-ground" solution, as Mr. Graber called it, was unfair. Mr. Meginniss later told reporters that every other public-sector union in the state that has gone on strike has gotten full restoration of dues check-off.

City Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardozo argued for the Bloomberg administration as an amicus, saying that the union's petition should be denied. He said that Local 100's executive board, rather than just Mr. Toussaint, would have to promise the union would not go on strike again in order to be in compliance with the 2006 ruling, because the board could hypothetically vote to strike even if Mr. Toussaint opposed a work stoppage.

"There is no other union in the State of New York that has this consistent pattern of violating the Taylor Law," Mr. Cardozo said.

Local 100 has gone on strike three times since 1966.

Sought Permanent Ban

To further keep the union from engaging in repeated work stoppages, Mr. Cardozo also asked Justice Balter to take Justice Jones's ruling further by issuing a permanent injunction against striking.

"The city says, 'That's not enough,''' Mr. Meginniss said in response. "To ask for more would actually create a whole bunch of constitutional and First Amendment issues."

Mr. Cardozo noted that the local's Web site still carries the text of Mr. Toussaint's speech titled "The Strike: 'Our Proudest Hour"' at the CUNY Graduate Center in September 2006. In it, the Local 100 President said that the MTA had not believed in 2005 that the union posed a "credible threat" to strike. "I think, however, that they will believe us next time," he said.

Mr. Meginniss responded, saying that the speech was taken out of context and to suppress the union president's ability to make such a speech would be a violation of the First Amendment. One rank-and-file Local 100 member - who criticized Mr. Toussaint's decision to cut short the 2005 walkout - went a step further upon reading about the city and MTA's arguments.

"Our right to strike is a human right," Marty Goodman, a Station Agent at the Spring St. stop on the C/E line, said in a phone interview. "I am against any kind of agreement, a wink, a handshake, any kind of closed-door handshake deal that would abrogate in any way our right to strike. They can keep their dues check-off if that's what it takes to get it back."