TWU Dues Rights Back But Happy Days Aren't

There was something Clintonian about the language Roger Toussaint used in the affidavit that got Transport Workers Union Local 100's dues check-off rights reinstated last week.

The Bloomberg administration, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Bruce Balter and a state appeals court had all insisted that he must vow not to strike again to gain a lifting of the most-costly of the penalties imposed for the three-day transit strike in December 2005.

No such vow was made, however.

The Local 100 Web site prefaced the publication of an excerpt of the affidavit by telling members, "Determine for yourselves what it says and what it means."

'No Intention to Strike'

The affidavit signed by Mr. Toussaint stated that "the Union does not assert the right to strike against any government, assist or participate in any such strike, or to impose an obligation to conduct, assist, or participate in such a strike, and that the Union has no intention, now or in the future, of conducting, assisting, participating, or imposing an obligation to conduct, assist, or participate in any such strike, or threatening to do so, against the plaintiffs or any governmental employer."

THE HIGH PRICE OF DUES: Transport Workers Union Local 100 activists (from left) John Samuelsen, Ainsley Stewart and Steve Downs questioned why, if union President Roger Toussaint was willing to state his intention not to strike as a condition for restoration of dues check-off rights, he waited nearly a year after a court ruling on the subject to finally relent.

It's not quite President Clinton using his own definition of what constitutes sex to deny having had it with Monica Lewinsky, but neither is it the ironclad promise not to strike that the Mayor and the courts had demanded over the previous year.

"This is a very fine parsing of narrow distinctions," said Joshua Freeman, "but they don't forswear entirely the possibility that they may be forced to strike in the future." A Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center who also authored a book on Local 100's history, he added, "In extreme circumstances, who knows?"

A more-pertinent question might be: Who is claiming that they stood their ground primarily to satisfy their constituents' perceptions: Mr. Toussaint or the Mayor and Justice Balter?

The punishment imposed on Local 100 — which will end just shy of 18 months when automatic dues deduction is restored with next week's checks — had already become excessive by the time that the union came into the judge's courtroom a year ago. At that point, more than five months had elapsed since the right to collect dues through automatic deductions from employee paychecks had been suspended. That was a month more than check-off rights had been suspended for an 11-day strike by Local 100 in 1980. Even if you held the view that the 2005 strike showed that the union's leaders and its rank and file had not taken the earlier penalty seriously enough, it seemed to have reached a stage where the hardship had begun to exceed the offense.

Not incidentally, membership anger over the outcome of that strike — a contract deal that forced them for the first time to pay a portion of their health insurance premiums in addition to the loss of six days' pay for their three days off the job — had already been amply communicated to Mr. Toussaint by last fall. If winning re-election in December 2006 with just 45 percent of the vote — his only saving grace a four-man opposition to split the anti-Roger ballots — hadn't been sufficient evidence, the high percentage of members who had failed to pay dues until that time was a smoking gun.

Less Than 40% Fully Paid

Even with continued efforts to get members current in their payments — something that was encouraged even by Mr. Toussaint's political opponents, who understood that every angry union member who wasn't paid up was a potentially lost vote for them next year — well below a majority of those who have been free of the involuntary check-off procedure have stayed up to date, according to John Samuelsen, one of the most-likely re-election challengers to Mr. Toussaint.

He said that during a recent Track Division meeting, Local 100 staff rep Leroy Jardim said that there were roughly 12,000 members in good standing out of a total of not quite 34,000. Another 12,000, Mr. Samuelsen said, were five payments or fewer away from being current and therefore out of bad standing, leaving close to 10,000 who would have to reach deep into their pockets to catch up.

"There's no future for a union where less than 40 percent of the members are in good standing," Mr. Samuelsen said.

This would seem to indicate that a vow against striking by Mr. Toussaint shouldn't have been necessary; that he no longer had the loyalty of enough members to even contemplate a walkout. Mr. Freeman questioned that assumption, however, saying, "The past history shows that internal divisions in the union do not affect solidarity" if a union leader calls a strike.

On the other hand, there is no past precedent for calling a strike soon after the unhappy result of a previous one.

The legendary Michael J. Quill was considered to have won the 1966 strike that began John Lindsay's tenure as Mayor, but there are two things to consider. One is that less than a month after the walkout ended, Mr. Quill was dead, his shaky health having been worsened by a prison stay. The other is that the tangible gains that Local 100 got from the contract that ended the walkout and the intangible ones it earned in street credibility in the long run were overshadowed by another product of that strike: the Taylor Law. It took the place of the Condon-Wadlin Act, which called for automatic firing of strikers but was rendered toothless by the impracticability of hunting up 30,000-plus replacements to run the buses and trains.

The Taylor Law doesn't behead the employees and unions who violate it; it bleeds them. Mr. Toussaint's public-relations machinery and the howlings of the editorial writers at the Wall Street Journal and the city's two tabloids aside, no serious person believes Local 100 profited from the last strike.

And the union has stayed afloat financially only because shortly before the walkout Mr. Toussaint sold the building in which it is headquartered. Even the profits from that sale haven't permitted Local 100 to maintain previous levels of staff and services, and it's still searching for a new building to call its own but with a diminished treasury with which to purchase it.

Sometimes 'Never' Makes Sense

As weakened as the union has been by the strike's aftermath, Mr. Toussaint has been able to take some solace from the fact that his opposition has been divided and in some cases is downright loopy. Exhibit A in the latter category was provided last week by Marty Goodman, a former executive board member who denounced Mr. Toussaint for submitting the affidavit to the court, saying, "There is no excuse, no reason, no justification at all for pledging never to strike." Mundane as it may sound, responsible union leaders have to realize there's not much percentage to drawing your sword and then charging into a wave of tanks and guns.

Ainsley Stewart, who ran against Mr. Toussaint in the 2006 Local 100 election, said he believed he should have consulted members before submitting the affidavit but that this was hardly his most-egregious disregard of union democracy. He and Mr. Samuelsen both contend that it was by design that Mr. Toussaint allowed so many members to wind up in bad standing because of nonpayment of dues, and they wondered whether he welcomed the long period without check-off rights.

"What he refused to do a year ago, he's doing now," Mr. Stewart pointed out regarding the language committing more firmly, if not absolutely, not to strike. In the interim, he said, Mr. Toussaint had been able to push through bylaw changes strengthening his power and moving up the next union election by six months, aided by the fact that many of those who would have opposed them were ineligible to vote because they hadn't paid their dues.

'Suppressing Dissent'

Noting that he had removed from positions of responsibility those who either criticized him or urged him to provide a form of dues amnesty, even though they were doing so while trying to persuade recalcitrant members to make their payments, Mr. Stewart said, "It's all about suppressing dissent and chilling free speech while making an end run around the bylaws."

Mr. Samuelsen observed that during Mr. Toussaint's first term in office he had granted dues amnesty to those who had been in bad standing for failing to pay dues during the period in 1982 when check-off was suspended as punishment for the 1980 strike.

Dealing with his own check-off problems, the Local 100 president "made a deliberate effort not to collect dues in the areas of the union where he was weakest," Mr. Samuelsen said, citing the Maintenance of Way Division and MTA Bus. "He figured those members there who were in bad standing come election time would be ineligible to vote."

Some Won't Ever Catch Up

Of course, union members who were unhappy with Mr. Toussaint should have realized that failing to pay dues would render them unable to play a role in changing leadership.

Mr. Samuelsen contended, though, "I think that the disenfranchisement of Local 100 members is so full and complete that the issue of whether they can vote in the next election is secondary to them."

He and Mr. Stewart both maintained that those who were furthest in arrears were unlikely to ever bring themselves up to date, simply because the tab had gotten too high for payback to be financially feasible.

The reinstatement of check-off rights, Mr. Samuelsen said, "stops the bleeding — that's the one good thing about it. But the way that he got it is a continuation of a long string of phony militancy. He shouted from the rooftops that he would never submit that affidavit, and he did."

That affidavit passing muster with the court, however, suggests that there is a winking agreement of some kind, one that is actually not unlike those Mr. Quill used to share with Mayor Robert Wagner back in an era when he would threaten a strike and then at the last possible moment a deal would be announced.

The affidavit and the resulting check-off restoration would seem to allow Local 100 and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to turn the page and deal with the next piece of pressing business: a wage contract to replace the one that produced so much grief and acrimony.

Did Mayor Block Deal?

It had been reported more than a month ago that the two sides were close to a deal, one that according to one union source would have provided three 4-percent increases. Mr. Bloomberg, according to this source, objected to those terms, most likely for two reasons: Mr. Toussaint had not yet submitted his "no intention to strike" affidavit, and the Mayor was in the process of rebuffing District Council 37's bid for the same wage terms, instead limiting it to a shorter deal with just two 4-percent hikes.

The affidavit has been produced, and the DC 37 deal awaits only final membership ratification, but new problems have arisen.

One is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's mounting budget deficit, which has been estimated at $1.2 billion, prompting the Daily News to speculate on its front page Nov. 12 about the need for a $3 transit fare.

The other is the state's financial woes, which on that same day led Governor Paterson to unveil a package of proposed cuts to save $5.2 billion that includes asking state unions to defer a scheduled 3-percent wage hike.

As Mr. Freeman put it, "State and national circumstances are about to overtake the peculiarities of the TWU. The whole political climate could change in the next few months."

Stimulus Help 'A Longshot'

The one potential ray of light is the possibility that the stimulus package being sought by President-elect Obama will include more money for mass transit, giving the MTA an added revenue stream. Even so, that is unlikely to be decided until well after the Jan. 15 expiration of Local 100's pact, five days before the new President takes office.

"I think it's a longshot," Mr. Stewart said regarding stimulus money. "They're caught up in too many people stretching their hats out to them. But if it does [materialize], I hope the MTA gets some funding. The authority can't look to balance the budget on the backs of the workers."

Transit workers have long been suspicious of budget crises that arise shortly before a contract is due — understandably so, given the revelation that a few years ago the MTA was keeping two sets of books in an attempt to bamboozle Local 100 into settling on the cheap — but even Mr. Toussaint's political opponents believe the financial situation is serious this time.

For that reason, Mr. Samuelsen said he had "absolutely tremendous concern that if we do get a contract with any kind of wage increase, it's going to be giveback-laden."

Wait Out the Crisis?

Mr. Stewart said that if the MTA could not offer a reasonable package, it made sense to work under an expired deal until the financial situation improved. Regardless of how binding Mr. Toussaint's affidavit might be, he remarked, "I don't see members really going on strike in a hurry under Toussaint's leadership."

Steve Downs, the chairman of Local 100's Train Operators Division and a former executive board member, said he believed the affidavit had "no impact on this year's bargaining. If you're in a situation where half the members aren't paying dues, there's a strong likelihood those people wouldn't honor a strike."

But he questioned whether the affidavit wasn't too high a price to pay for dues restoration, arguing that it might hamstring the union in a future negotiation. (Mr. Stewart, in an ironic echo of something Mr. Toussaint himself had said prior to the 2005 walkout, called "the threat of a strike more effective than a strike itself" as a bargaining tactic.)

"Although the union and its members realize the penalties are quite high," Mr. Downs said, "that's an option that shouldn't have been taken off the table."

He continued, "The reality of our situation now is the local is weaker than it was before Roger became president. There's a connection between this step that he's taking now and his failure over eight years to build a local that could have stood up to the loss of dues check-off. Which means we have a lot of rebuilding to do."

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