For Toussaint, Power Is All That's Left
By RICHARD STEIER

Roger Toussaint seems determined to prove that Neil Young's line about rock stars - ''It's better to burn out than to fade away" - doesn't apply to union leaders.

He came to office as president of Transport Workers Union Local 100 in 2000 pledging to engage his members and once again make them a force to be reckoned with. At the midway point of his third term in office, however, his presidency is teetering between crashing disappointment and Chaplinesque farce.

Earlier this month, Local 100 members by a roughly 2-1 margin approved a series of changes in the union's bylaws that seem designed to strengthen Mr. Toussaint's control of its operation, which the union's Web site declared would make it "stronger, more effective, and more responsive to its members."

Sinking Into Undistinguished Company

Yet the Web site doesn't explain the bylaw changes, or even list them other than by their numbers on the ballot. Fewer than 5,000 valid ballots were cast out of a membership that approaches 39,000. There is the suspicion that Veronica Montgomery-Costa, who as president of Local 372 of District Council 37 has consciously aimed to discourage member participation in union operations, could produce a larger return than that if she permitted mail ballots for her local's elections.

PLANNED SHRINKAGE?: Although the passage of a series of bylaw changes led one supporter of Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint to insist he will be 'very difficult to defeat unless he screws up the contract' when he seeks re-election next year, an increasingly disillusioned membership - more than 80 percent of which was either ineligible to vote or chose not to - has him drifting in the wrong direction after he came to power eight years ago pledging to restore the local's past glory.

That is not distinguished company for Mr. Toussaint to be in. But it is a measure of how far he has fallen from the lofty plateaus he set for the union during his early days in charge. His hopes of making it a mighty force that could rekindle memories of the union under the late Michael J. Quill have disappeared in the cloud of dust from which he conducts business primarily with an eye to retaining power.

The most significant of the bylaw changes authorizes Local 100's executive board to move its election forward by six months, to next June, even though the actual counting of the ballots won't be done until December 2009.

There is a logical explanation for this change that doesn't involve voting fraud, and it was provided last week by Steve Downs, head of Local 100's Train Operator Division and a member of the union's largest fraternity: former allies of Mr. Toussaint who are now critics of his regime.

According to Mr. Downs, the move is designed to strengthen Mr. Toussaint's hand at the convention of his international union, the TWU of America, next October. The new election date will coincide with the voting for Local 100 delegates to that convention, but the delegate ballots will be counted shortly after they are cast.

Mr. Downs said that if delegate candidates loyal to Mr. Toussaint do well in that voting, it will be presumed that the Local 100 president and his running mates on the executive board have also done well. This would send a signal to top officials of the international union, he said, that Mr. Toussaint is likely to retain his presidency and so they should finally give him the ranking position in the TWU of America that he is entitled to unless they want to create a powerful enemy.

This sort of thinking, however, seems a classic example of putting the cart before the horse. If members are alienated by the screwball logic of having an early election but delaying the vote count by six months, it is less likely that the show of strength Mr. Toussaint is banking on among the delegates will actually materialize.

'What the Hell Is He Doing'?

Which was why one admirer of the Local 100 president who never drank his Kool-Aid said of the election change, "I think the amendment itself is idiotic. My first reaction is, Jesus Christ, what the hell is he doing?"

He then added, "It's a pity. I think Roger's smart and totally honest, monetarily, and yet he could fight a cockroach on what territory they're going to walk on."

John Samuelsen, a fallen-away ally who is expected to run against Mr. Toussaint next year, agreed with Mr. Downs's theory about the Local 100 leader's hope of sending a message to the international, speculating that he rejected the more-palatable way of doing it - by also counting the ballots for president next June - because that would put too much on the line. Referring to International President James Little, Mr. Samuelsen said of Mr. Toussaint's objective, "He's got to show Little that he can win [in order] for Little to include him on the team. If the ballots were counted in June and he lost, he would be of no use to Little."

But one quirk of the TWU of America's governance system is that a local president who holds international office can keep it even if he loses a local election. Terms on the international executive board run for four years, where Local 100's last for three, and Mr. Downs noted that next year is one of the rare ones in which elections for both are being held.

On the one hand, he said, Mr. Toussaint wanted to send a signal based on the delegate vote; on the other, the Local 100 president did not want anyone getting wind of the executive board results early if they were unfavorable to him and his running-mates.

There are two reasons for that, Mr. Downs said: "They believe that if people find out that they've lost their offices, either they won't do their jobs well for the last part of their terms or management won't respect them or take them seriously during that time."

Of course, he added, "You would avoid either of those problems if you waited until November [when nominations would normally be taken and ballots mailed out] to hold your election."

Ally: 'Roger's in Control'

But one of Mr. Toussaint's dwindling band of supporters in the labor movement dismissed suggestions that the meager ballot return showed how little sway he still holds over his members and that the six-month delay between election and vote count would further antagonize the rank and file.

"Roger's in control," he argued. "Among those who are eligible to vote, he is going to be very difficult to defeat unless he totally screws up the contract," referring to upcoming wage talks for a successor agreement to the Local 100 wage pact that expires in mid-January.

But the qualifier he attached to his claim, "among those who are eligible to vote," speaks volumes about the loss of faith in Mr. Toussaint within the larger rank and file.

Still Reeling From Strike Fallout

Both financially and spiritually, Local 100 has still not recovered from the after-shocks of its December 2005 transit strike. The loss of automatic dues deduction from members' paychecks beginning in June of last year, one of the primary penalties for violating the Taylor Law, has forced Local 100 to ask members to voluntarily remit the money. Hard feelings that lingered from the contract reached after that strike - most notably, the requirement for the first time that members pay a portion of the cost of their health benefits - produced a less-than-ringing response.

The last time Local 100 disclosed the number of members who were up to date on their dues payments last year, only 17,449 were considered to be in "good standing." Mr. Samuelsen said this year there has been a steady growth in the number of members who were fully paid up, which was why 26,000 ballots were mailed out for the bylaw vote.

Even based on that number rather than the total membership, the return for that vote was shockingly low. The most votes on any of the 16 bylaw changes was 4,625, but Mr. Downs said 4,651 valid ballots were actually cast - about 18 percent of those eligible by virtue of being in good standing. The 3,150 who approved Amendment 1 on the ballot - the largest margin for any of the bylaw changes, in this case requiring at least one membership meeting a year - amounts to just over 12 percent of the members in good standing, and about 8 percent of the total membership.

"The key thing here," Mr. Downs remarked, "is most of the members didn't really care, or think it mattered whether they voted or not."

'Convinced Them Not to Vote'

Mr. Samuelsen put it even more harshly. "It's a testament to the damage he's done to the union," he said of Mr. Toussaint. "He's convinced the members that it's not worth it for them to vote."

He cited Mr. Toussaint's previous attempt to hold a re-vote on the 2005 wage contract after it was rejected by just 7 votes out of more than 22,000 cast, and his nullifying several elections in Local 100 divisions based on the claim that candidates were ineligible to run because they were either delinquent on dues payments or had urged members not to pay their dues (something Mr. Toussaint accused Mr. Samuelsen of in a trumped-up move to deny him a shop steward position).

"Guys say, 'Why should I vote - the guys I elected are still working here with their tools,''' Mr. Samuelsen said.

After he negotiated his first contract as union president in late 2002, Mr. Toussaint bristled when only 60 percent of those who cast ballots - 11,757 - voted in favor of its terms. He said following the ratification count in January 2003 that it showed how much work he had to do to overcome the interference from his political enemies both within the local and in the international.

But a determination at that time to convince members to embrace his trade-union ideals has been replaced by a cynical approach to the problems that have arisen since dues-checkoff rights were revoked. In some cases, critics of Mr. Toussaint have been declared to be in bad standing even when they produced documentary evidence that they were up to date on dues payments.

Smaller Electorate, Bigger Win

And the shrunken electorate afforded him the kind of victory margins on the bylaw vote that he had not seen in more than five years - besides the rejection of his post-strike contract, Mr. Toussaint won re-election in December 2006 with just 45 percent of the vote, benefiting from a splitting of the opposition support among four challengers.

But at what price? A top official at another union, who spoke on condition that he not be identified, said Local 100 was not the only large union to experience relatively low returns from a mail ballot.

But asked whether the standards Mr. Toussaint had previously established for membership participation didn't make these results more glaring, he acknowledged, "I would be concerned if I was the TWU leadership to have such a low turnout. But part of it is a product of all the fighting within the union. It's a puzzlement to me why things are so contentious there."

The simplest answer may be that it's because Mr. Toussaint seems to thrive on combat, and resistance to his bruising management style has grown as a series of decisions he made over the past three years have wound up unhappily.

Building Sale Controversies

During his first contract negotiation in 2002, Mr. Toussaint found himself distracted by the machinations of then-International President Sonny Hall, a former Local 100 president who had stayed heavily involved in its operation until Mr. Toussaint took over, and his allies. Besides teaching him to watch his back, that experience should have been enough for Mr. Toussaint to want to avoid any diversions for internal battles before the 2005 talks, when Governor Pataki and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority leadership were being egged on by newspaper editorial boards to take a hard line with his union.

Shortly before the talks got serious, Mr. Toussaint decided to sell Local 100's West End Ave. headquarters for a reported $60 million. Mr. Samuelsen, who was still an ally of his and was a paid Local 100 staffer, questioned whether the transaction should be put on hold until after the contract was settled. Mr. Toussaint, in a reprise of his response countless times when a subordinate questioned his judgment, sent Mr. Samuelsen packing.

His handling of the matter came back to bite Mr. Toussaint twice. After the three-day strike produced a tentative contract deal, Mr. Samuelsen was among those most upset about the provision that required members to pay 1.5 percent of their total earnings - including overtime wages - toward their health coverage. With no reason to hold his tongue out of loyalty to Mr. Toussaint, he vociferously opposed the deal, and is likely to have swayed a lot more than the seven votes that torpedoed it. Then, earlier this year, the union's headquarters, which it still occupies, was sold for $30 million more than Local 100 received for it a couple of years ago. It's not the only Manhattan property to be flipped quickly at a big profit, but the political ammunition this gave the anti-Toussaint faction of the union was fortified by the fact that the union still has no permanent home, and lost a tax break it would have been entitled to had it purchased a new building within a year of the old one's sale.

Strike Rationale Dubious

Mr. Toussaint's decision to lead a strike continues to mystify, given that, unlike Mr. Quill at the time he led the 1966 transit walkout, he had the right to binding arbitration if he believed management was not bargaining in good faith. The rationale given by his supporters at the time - that asking for arbitration would have meant the MTA never again had to take a strike threat seriously - does not hold up under scrutiny. Local 100 in the past had gone to arbitration rather than risk a repeat of the disastrous 1980 transit strike, but that had not prevented Mr. Toussaint from credibly posing a strike threat in both 2002 and 2005.

Arbitration might have limited what he could have won for his members. But at the same time, it would have been an unlikely venue for the MTA to gain the right to impose less-generous pension or health-benefit plans for new employees, as it was seeking to do. Given that it already seemed likely at that point in late 2005 that Eliot Spitzer was going to be elected Governor the following November and was expected to take a less-hostile position toward the union through his MTA Chairman, the most prudent course would have been to try the union's luck in arbitration and press for more-ambitious gains after the change of administrations.

Took the Bait, Then Pulled Back

Mr. Toussaint, however, feeling provoked - and not without justification in believing that - took the bait and led the walkout. Three days in, realizing that if he kept his members out and Scrooged the Christmas shopping season he would be facing ruin in the courts for violating the Taylor Law and have scant public support, he agreed to have his members return to work while a deal was reached with the help of mediators.

He emerged with a 37-month contract that provided 10.5 percent in raises and a number of small but important gains in other fringe-benefit areas. But he agreed to a major concession in requiring that members for the first time partly fund their own health coverage, and for much of the rank and file, this outweighed the gains in other areas. What particularly galled them was that the formula for deducting their premiums was tied to overall earnings rather than base salary.

In Mr. Toussaint's eyes, this was a necessary price to pay rather than forcing all future members to accept an inferior health plan compared to the one for those already on the job. Among his rank and file, however, the aim of going out on strike and incurring the salary losses required of them under the Taylor Law was to avoid givebacks, not spread them among the entire workforce.

So they narrowly voted down his deal, only to have its essential terms imposed in the arbitration that resulted. Arbitrator George Nicolau was constrained in crafting an award in ways that he wouldn't have been if the union had proceeded immediately to a third-party resolution without having already negotiated a deal.

Four months after the strike, Mr. Toussaint briefly went to jail for leading it. During an interview with NY1 anchor Dominic Carter while in custody, Mr. Toussaint was at his reflective best, talking about the impact that unions accepting lesser benefit plans for new members would have and asking, "Is that a future that we want for America - that we're harming our children?"

Back to Burning Bridges

But once he was back on the street, Mr. Toussaint turned his attention to burning more bridges with those who dared to question him. It became clear to me that the problem went beyond a union leader holding his subordinates to high standards and being unwilling to tolerate any failure to meet them 14 months ago, a few days before Local 100 was to lose its dues check-off rights.

An editorial appeared in this newspaper urging members to pay their dues, regardless of any hard feelings they might harbor toward Mr. Toussaint for the strike or other reasons. I got a call that afternoon from a representative of Local 100's outside public-relations firm, Sunshine Sachs, not to comment on the editorial but to castigate me for running a letter to the editor from one of Mr. Toussaint's critics that the PR rep claimed was chock full of distortions. When I suggested that we'd be happy to run a rebuttal letter, he responded by questioning the newspaper's ethics in running a letter without vetting it first for accuracy.

It occurred to me then, because I didn't think this young man was hectoring me on his own initiative, that Mr. Toussaint had gone off the deep end.

It wasn't even the absence of gratitude about the editorial, although that was notable. It was the notion that the letters page, the most-democratic part of any newspaper, should be cleansed of any opinions whose accuracy could not be certified.

Cursing the Darkness

Since then, the union's manner of officially communicating with this newspaper has settled into a peculiar routine. Our transit reporter, Ari Paul, calls with questions, which the Sunshine Boy refuses to answer; then, when stories appear noting the lack of response, he contacts Mr. Paul to squirt cider in his ear about the unbalanced nature of the articles and all the details he supposedly got wrong. It might seem simpler to try to affect that balance by answering the questions than to gripe about the stories after the fact, but Mr. Toussaint's vision may be too grand for logic to enter the discussion.

That appears to be at the root of the continued loss of dues check-off rights, nearly 14 months after the penalty was imposed - compared to the four-month loss the union suffered for the 11-day strike in 1980. Rather than petition a judge for relief on the grounds of economic harm, Mr. Toussaint is pursuing an appeal - on First Amendment grounds - of a judge's ruling last November denying check-off restoration after he and the rest of his board refused to sign affidavits saying they would not strike again.

It's a noble fight to be sure, on principle. But the likelihood of another Local 100 strike when the current contract expires is less than great, for the simple reason that few union leaders call for job actions if they know that most of their members aren't going to follow them out to the picket line. And so it's hard to see what prerogative Mr. Toussaint is preserving, other than the right not to be humbled by saying you've done something wrong and learned your lesson.

'Shut Up' Still Echoes

He could argue the unfairness of the continued penalty, particularly since the MTA stated in court that the union should be given automatic dues-deduction rights again on a conditional basis. And so Mr. Toussaint might be justified in believing that the penalty has been prolonged solely to satisfy a grudge held against him by Mayor Bloomberg, who surely realizes the chances of another transit strike six months from now are negligible.

Of course, Mr. Toussaint gave the Mayor reason to be less than charitable toward him long before the transit strike disrupted life in the city: three years earlier, during a tense contract negotiation, the Local 100 leader responded to a reporter's question about statements Mr. Bloomberg had made by saying that the Mayor should "shut up."

The remark was replayed numerous times on local television stations, and embellished Mr. Toussaint's reputation as a tough guy who wouldn't bend the knee to anybody.

The image still holds nearly six years later. It has come with a large tab, however: a union that is hemorrhaging money while undoubtedly forced to dip into the proceeds from the sale of its headquarters, and a leadership that treats the spirited dissent that has long been a part of its tradition (with Mr. Toussaint in a previous life as an ordinary Track Worker once proudly partaking) as treason and grounds for removal from office.

It is a union where deep dissatisfaction among more than 10,000 members has left them, however wrongheadedly, withholding their dues and ineligible to vote, and where more than 20,000 who retain eligibility didn't bother to exercise that right regarding bylaws that radically altered the union's election process.

Not the Union He Promised

This wasn't what Mr. Toussaint had in mind early in his tenure when he spoke of restoring Local 100's reputation as a great, fighting union. Nor does the current state of the union square with his remarks early in 2003 about members who had complained that, by addressing the most-pressing needs of some segments of Local 100, he had done more for them than the rest of the rank and file.

"When you're voting," Mr. Toussaint said in an interview then, "you have to decide whether you're part of a union or a tribal association."

The bylaw vote suggests he can count on the support of eight percent of his members. He may believe that's enough of a base to perpetuate his power. It's not enough to pass for a union, however.
 

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