A Year After Losing Dues Check-Off, TWU Waits on Court

A Year After Losing Dues Check-Off, TWU Waits on Court


After Transport Workers Union Local 100 took transit workers on an 11-day strike in 1980, it lost dues check-off rights for four months under the Taylor Law, which bars public-sector work stoppages. For its three-day strike in 2005, the union has been without dues check-off rights for more than a year as of June 1, with no resolution in sight.

The Chief-Leader/Eric Weiss EDWARD BAILEY: May be time to take pledge.

The issue is waiting to be heard by an appeals court, after a Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice denied the restoration of dues check-off - even though Local 100 had the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's conditional support - saying that union President Roger Toussaint and every executive board member had to promise not to take the union on strike again. Mr. Toussaint has refused to do this and appealed the case.

The union failed to convince the appeals court to expedite the case, largely because Local 100 contended that the case pivoted on its First Amendment rights rather than arguing that continuing to operate without dues check-off was causing excessive punishment to union members.

"This is a very long stretch to be under sanction in comparison to the relative brevity of the strike," said Joshua Freeman, a Professor of History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and author of a book on the origins of Local 100. "Certainly in the early days of the Taylor Law, strikes were kind of a feature of public-sector labor relations even though they've always been illegal. They have become so much more rare today, and they seem like a greater transgression."

Only about half of Local 100's New York City Transit and private bus lines members who lost dues check-off have fully paid up voluntarily. And confusion about how long a member has to be arrears before he or she is considered in bad standing and ineligible to vote or hold office has slowed down several elections for vacant union offices in the past year.

The Case for Paying Dues

NYC Transit Bus Operator Edward Bailey, based at the East 126th St. Depot in Manhattan, said he pays his dues on time because he values the union representation he receives.

"They know more than I do as far as negotiating with management," he said.

But he added that many people in his depot were far behind in their dues and he believed that Mr. Toussaint should promise not to go on strike in order to restore dues check-off and secure enough money to fund representation.

"The members may not like it, but if that's what he has to do, I think that's a good idea," Mr. Bailey said. "I don't know how the union is going to survive."

'Tried to Break Union'

Gene Russianoff, the attorney for the Straphangers' Campaign, believed it was important for the union to have dues check-off, because without it Local 100 is distracted by its campaign to self-collect dues rather than representing members. He said that he was lobbying in Albany last week on transportation issues alongside lobbyists from Local 100.

While Mr. Bailey insisted that Mr. Toussaint should swear off striking in order to reinstate dues check-off, he placed his blame on the court and the city for prolonging the punishment.

"They were trying to break the union," he said.