Out to 'Elect' Challenger
Toussaint Foe Tries To Unite Dissidents

By ARI PAUL

Dissidents within Transport Workers Union Local 100 have been struggling to find a way to have a united opposition slate for the union's election in 2009, rather than seeing several factions competing against each other. Rank-and-file New York City Transit worker Lee Ireland thinks he knows how.

ORGANIZING THE OPPOSITION: Conductor Lee Ireland is trying to launch an independent primary election so that dissidents within Transport Workers Union Local 100 can agree on one candidate to support in the 2009 presidential election. In the 2006 election, the opposition vote was split among four candidates.

Finding a Candidate

Since March, the A-line Conductor has been organizing a decidedly unsanctioned primary election, to find a single candidate to take on Local 100 President Roger Toussaint in the union's general election set for 2009. In the December 2006 election, Mr. Toussaint was able to win re-election with less than 50 percent of the vote because the opposition vote was split among four candidates. This way, Mr. Ireland noted, the dissident candidates would establish their support prior to the actual election, resulting in the strongest one running for the presidency next year.

"That's what people do all over the world," Mr. Ireland said. "That's what we're doing."

Under the banner of Members for a Democratic Union, Mr. Ireland is asking fellow members to pay $10 each to vote in the primary administered by the Election Services Corporation, which he hopes to hold sometime in early 2009. A 23-year veteran of NYC Transit, he could retire soon but said that he would not do so until a slate devoted to union democracy took control of the local.

"I'm going to see this project 'til the very end," Mr. Ireland said.

Former Toussaint ally turned opposition leader John Samuelsen is expected to run for president in 2009. No other Local 100 members have announced a candidacy.

"There are two questions," said Herman Benson, the secretary-treasurer of the Brooklyn-based Association for Union Democracy. "One is, are the leaders of the various groups ready to submerge their individual interests in the interest of the platform of democracy? Secondly, how would they decide on who votes in this primary?"

'Will They Agree?'

ROGER TOUSSAINT: Splintered opposition.

He pointed out that groups within the Public Employees Federation and other unions have conducted similar types of primary elections.

"It's a fine idea if the opposition can agree," he said. "It seems to me the one thing that would bind them all together is that the union is being run in a very arbitrary fashion."

The last election had several dissident slates with candidates for president, including Barry Roberts of the Rail and Bus slate and Ainsley Stewart of the Union Democracy slate.

"I'm willing to look at anything that is going to end the dictatorship of Roger Toussaint," said Mr. Samuelsen, who ran for secretary-treasurer, the union's number two position, on the Rail and Bus slate in 2006.

Mr. Ireland said that he has already given the Election Services Corporation a $5,000 deposit and predicted that the election, in the end, would cost more than $84,000. While he claimed at least 3,000 of Local 100's more-than 33,000 members have paid $10 to vote in the primary, he would need to sign up 5,000 more to cover the costs.

"If I can't, I guess I'll have to sell my house," he said.