'Joint Problem-Solving'
Transit Head Seeks TWU Collaboration

By ARI PAUL

New York City Transit President Howard H. Roberts has promised his employees that a change in the agency's labor relations is on the way.

HOWARD ROBERTS: Let's work together.

In a letter to all NYC Transit workers last month, Mr. Roberts said he would deliver on recommendations made in a blue-ribbon panel report on workforce development for Metropolitan Transportation Authority management and labor leaders issued in January.

Envisions Partnership

"In the next few months, you will see more collaborative efforts between labor and management to reach solutions on issues like employee availability and training," Mr. Roberts said. "We will establish joint labor management taskforces to address critical issues of common concern, and will work with and encourage our labor leaders to partner with us to reach solutions."

The panel, which was co-chaired by former MTA Chairman Richard Ravitch, determined that MTA agencies should create more opportunities to recognize employee performance and "highlight and share best practices of existing employee recognition programs throughout the agencies and encourage replication." It recommended that supervisors and managers undergo training in customer service and communicating with workers.

ROGER TOUSSAINT: Cautiously receptive.

"We will expand our employee recognition programs and create new ones that provide timely recognition to employees who mirror [NYC Transit]'s valued behaviors and whose job performance help us deliver quality service to our customers," Mr. Roberts said.

He also vowed to create new educational opportunities for employees.

A Less-Iron Hand

After previously serving at the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority and in a stint here more than 20 years ago at the then-Transit Authority, Mr. Roberts was widely seen as an executive who could reform NYC Transit's administration, which Transport Workers Union Local 100 long believed excessively disciplined members.

Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, who made his mark as a union activist ready to fight management and later led the union on an illegal three-day strike in 2005, has hailed the authority's willingness under Mr. Roberts to collaborate in order to improve track safety after two Track Workers were killed on the job last April. He has also echoed the authority's claim that discipline against Local 100 members has decreased, though the union has said that Rapid Transit Operations members still face a significant number of discipline charges.

JOHN SAMUELSEN: Color him skeptical.

"Our train crews and tower operators move over four million people every week," a statement in the union's most recent newsletter said. "Yet too often, the minute our members get on the platform or experience an operational problem, they are treated with less respect than children. We intend to stick to our guns until this changes. Too many bosses still don't understand that we are supposed to be in the transportation business, not the humiliation business."

Dissident: A Charade

Track Inspector and vocal Local 100 dissent John Samuelsen dismissed the letter, saying that labor and management collaboration on track safety has not been fruitful.

"It's been a charade," he said, adding that the only significant rule change has been the issuance of radios to Track Workers last month. "The radio is useless in aiding us against the main danger that we face: On-coming train traffic. We are not allowed to use the radios to call the towers to determine which trains are coming our way."

Mr. Samuelsen, once a loyalist to Mr. Toussaint until their relationship soured in late 2005 over discussions on the sale of Local 100's headquarters, blamed the union president for abandoning the members' interest in the name of partnering with management.

"It makes me think that Toussaint is confused about what his role is," he said. "His role is to aggressively represent transit workers to achieve better wages and benefits. He seems to think his role is to partner with the MTA in order to achieve their goals instead of achieving the goals of transit workers."

'Our Job is to Fight'

A Local 100 spokesman declined to comment.

Station Agent Marty Goodman, a former ally of Mr. Toussaint, said that when he first read about the panel's recommendations, "steam was blowing out my ears." He has been critical of the local's decision to view management as a partner in creating change on the job.

"It's embracing the enemy," he said. "The purpose of a union is to fight. That will never ever change."