Anger or Money Pinch?
TWU Dues Holdout Logic is Questioned

By ARI PAUL

For one New York City Transit Station Agent, the fact that fewer than half of Transport Workers Union Local 100 members have fully paid their dues is a mystery.

ROGER TOUSSAINT: A lightning rod.

"I love my union," said the A/C/E line station worker, who would identify herself only as Sanders, adding that she was grateful to the union for "things that we have achieved over the years: child care, upgraded programs, send my kids to college, buy a house, buy a car."

Minus Check-Off

Local 100 has 33,700 members at New York City Transit, where it has been without automatic dues deduction since last June 1 as a penalty for its illegal three-day strike in 2005. The union petitioned in Brooklyn Supreme Court last fall for restoration of dues check-off rights with the conditional support of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, but Justice Bruce Balter denied the request, demanding that Local 100 President Roger Toussaint and the entire executive board vow not to strike again. Alleging that this violated its First Amendment rights, the union is appealing the ruling.

"I tell people to pay their dues," Ms. Sanders said. "I'm one of the activists."

Some political rivals of Mr. Toussaint said that the drought in dues payment was a protest against his leadership. Other members have said that it is not political, theorizing that members may have fallen behind for a few months, finding themselves too deep in debt to get back into good standing right away.

Local 100 has said in the past that more than 60 percent of its members were in good standing and that as many as 80 percent had paid some portion of their dues voluntarily. In response to the publication of its submission to the U.S. Department of Labor showing that less than half of the membership was in good standing, the union explained in a dispatch to members that many of them were paying dues at the end of each month along with their personal bills, even though union dues must be paid by the 15th day of each month.

In the union's Private Lines Division, parts of which also had check-off rights suspended because they joined the walkout, workers had difficulty paying through the union's on-line system, with some depots only able to sign up for dues payment only when union officers came to the workplaces, and in at least one case, after the monthly deadline.

A Station Agent who spoke conditioned on anonymity at the City Hall station on the R/W line believed that members weren't paying dues because they felt the 2005 strike was uncalled for and unsuccessful, since they were ultimately forced to pay for a portion of their health benefits under a contract awarded in arbitration.

"This is their way of punishing the union," he said. "We could have stayed in and got the same thing."

But the Station Agent thought this was an illegitimate form of protest. Despite his displeasure with the contract and with the leadership of Mr. Toussaint, he believed that not paying dues crippled the union, in addition to taking away a member's right to vote or officially participate in union activity.

"Without a union, what do we have?" he asked.