Members Claim Toussaint Is Manipulating Election;
Question TWU Bylaw Changes
By ARI PAUL

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James 'ROGER'S FORGING A DICTATORSHIP': Transit worker and Nubian Society President Paul Waldon expressed anger at the outcome of the bylaw referendum for Transport Workers Union Local 100, saying that moving the election from December 2009 to next June would aid President Roger Toussaint's prospects of winning another three-year term.

New York City Transit Station Agent Paul Waldon has seen a lot of strange things in his 23 years as a Transport Workers Union Local 100 member, but for him, the recent referendum allowing President Roger Toussaint to move next year's election from December to June while leaving ballots uncounted for six months stands out.

Meant to 'Ensure Re-Election'

"It's targeted to ensure him re-election, said Mr. Waldon, who also serves as president of the Nubian Society, a fraternal order of African-American transit workers.

As he saw it, the move would subtract six months from the time members in bad standing, who do not have voting rights, could get caught up in their dues payments and re-earn their right to vote. This would benefit Mr. Toussaint, he said, because many members are not paying dues as a form of protest against the current administration. Although at last report by the union only 17,449 of its roughly 39,000 members were in good standing, Local 100 dissident John Samuelsen said the mailing of 26,000 ballots for the bylaw vote reflected a steady increase in those paying full dues since the beginning of the year. The union lost automatic dues check-off rights in June 2007 as a punishment for its illegal, three-day strike in 2005.

STEVE DOWNS: Election savings 'insignificant.'

Previous Local 100 presidents, Mr. Waldon said, such as Willie James, who he believed were inadequate labor leaders, hadn't moved to disenfranchise members in such a way as this.

"We've never had this dictatorship-type thing," Mr. Waldon said. "At least people had a say."

With only about 4,600 members casting valid ballots earlier this month, the union voted 2-to-1 in favor of a set of 16 bylaw changes that among other things authorize the presidential vote to held in June but tallied in December, create a new administrative vice president position, give retirees a non-voting representative on the executive board and reorganize the local's Private Bus Lines Division.

Justification for Move-Up

Local 100 has asserted that an earlier election was necessary to save money - since the election of officers will be conducted at the same time as a vote for delegates to the convention of its international union - and a spokesman for Mr. Toussaint insisted that because the American Arbitration Association would be overseeing next year's election, it would be conducted fairly and impartially.

But Station Agent Steve Anderson, based in lower Manhattan, wasn't buying it.

"You'd have to spend a lot of money to guard those ballots for six months," he said last week.

On top of that, he believed that the union did not fully explain to members why passing the set of 16 bylaw amendments was so important. He said he received a voicemail message simply telling him to vote yes.

Subway and bus workers discussed various reasons why they did not vote in a referendum in which only about 18 percent of the eligible members chose to cast ballots. One worker said a family emergency distracted her from union business, and a Cleaner at the West 72nd St. station on the 1/2/3 line said he had never been informed about the referendum at all.

'Not Consulting Us'

But a Station Agent on the West Side IRT said the union leadership was making decisions, "without consulting us."

When asked why he didn't exercise his opportunity to vote, his response invoked the notion that voting in the local was futile: "Even if we did," he said, "it wouldn't go that way."

The moving of the general election to June but leaving the ballots to be counted six months later has raised the eyebrows of Mr. Toussaint's critics.

But Local 100 maintained the move was necessary to save money because originally, in 2009, there was to be a vote in June for Local 100 delegates for the TWU International convention and a general election for local officers six months later. Combining the votes, the local argued, would save money by having one mailing instead of two.

Doesn't Want Lame Ducks

The general election vote still has to wait to be tallied, Mr. Toussaint has argued, because if not, incumbent officers who lost in June would not be taken seriously by management or would not be motivated to work for the following six months.

But as Train Operator Division Chair Steve Downs explained outside the union hall last week, combining the mailings in June, if the number of members in good standing stays the same and postal rates remain the same, would save the union roughly $8,000. That is about how much it pays monthly to its public relations consulting firm, Sunshine Sachs.

"It's insignificant," Mr. Downs said.

He also contended that the savings from an early election would be more than offset by the costs of another bylaw amendment: the creation of a fourth executive leadership position, the administrative vice president.

One of the other bylaw changes stipulates that any member being considered for a position outside the bargaining the unit is barred from running for or holding a union office. Others set rules for how union officers are paid during strikes and gives the union leadership oversight over officers doing fund-raising for private functions within the union. Another reorganizes the Private Bus Lines Division into subsets based on the kind of transit, rather than two subsets based on location.

A Train Operator on the L line, who spoke conditioned on anonymity, didn't see a major problem with the election being moved up, but still voted against the bylaw changes.

"I'm tired of the leadership," he said. "A change is always good."