Toussaint's Peculiar Rules

The challengers in next week's Transport Workers Union Local 100 officers election have accused the union's leadership of using spurious or false claims of dues delinquency to rule some of them ineligible.

In one case, a potential candidate was deemed to be in bad standing because of a single dues payment that came in 16 days late.

There have been several complicating factors, including an unwieldy mechanism for notifying members that they are behind on their payments. In some cases, they have been told erroneously that they were in arrears; in others they were listed as up to date only to be told later that this was not the case.

The haphazard accounting procedures and the strict enforcement raise eyebrows because the dues problems were created by the loss of automatic collection rights that Local 100 surrendered as a penalty for its three-day strike in 2005. President Roger Toussaint's questionable decision to pursue an appeal on First Amendment grounds rather than seek speedy restoration predicated on financial hardship— as the union's then-leaders did after the 11- day strike in 1980—led to nearly 18 months elapsing before dues check-off was restored, compared to a four-month loss for the previous, longer strike.

Given his poor judgment both in leading the walkout rather than agreeing to arbitration—which was how the 2005 contract wound up being settled anyway— and in extending the period in which the union had to rely on members submitting payments rather than having payroll deduction at its disposal—it might have been expected that Mr. Toussaint would cut members a bit of slack, particularly in cases where dues were paid just slightly late.

Anyone expecting such reasonableness has not been paying close attention to Mr. Toussaint, however, particular during his third and worst term as Local 100 president. He has publicly referred to the strike as "our finest hour," notwithstanding the fact that the penalties imposed afterward outweighed the contract gains that were made—something that was underscored when the deal he brought back was narrowly voted down by his rank and file.

Last summer he pushed through an amendment to the union's bylaws permitting the officers election to be moved up to June but leaving the vote-count to be held at its regular December time. He was able to accomplish this in large part because so many of his opponents within the union had not stayed up to date on dues payments—a mistake on their part, but something that helped create a travesty of democracy, since the change was made based on the votes of less than 10 percent of the membership.

Aside from serving Mr. Toussaint's political interests, there is no obvious or plausible reason for the screwball schedule. But moving up the vote increased the chances that some potential challengers could be deemed in bad standing and therefore ineligible to run. Since one criterion for being a candidate is that a union member must be in good standing by virtue of keeping up dues payments for a full year prior to an election, the restoration of automatic dues-deduction rights late last November would have ensured that anyone interested in running would have been eligible if the vote was held at its normal time late this fall.

Given these manipulations, and the lawyerly political wheedling behind them, it was somewhat astonishing to learn last week that Mr. Toussaint while pulling all these strings has been off the Local 100 payroll for as much as six months. In a deposition for a court case brought by Ainsley Stewart, who ran against him for president three years ago and claims both his union stipends and dues status were tampered with in retaliation, Mr. Toussaint last month stated, "I'm not salaried by Local 100 anymore," having moved from his $100,000 job to one paying $175,000 as a vice president of its international union.

Mr. Stewart, in both a letter that appears on the next page and an interview with this newspaper's Ari Paul, contends that this means Mr. Toussaint is in violation of Local 100's bylaws on a couple of counts. The lesser one is that he is continuing to use vehicles paid for by the local; the more-serious one is that he is running it even though international union officers are not supposed to get involved in local affairs unless there is evidence of wrongdoing.

Representatives of Mr. Toussaint didn't respond to questions about these matters last week. It is possible he would claim that there is nothing improper about his exercising control over the local because it is with the consent of Acting President Curtis Tate.

But such a defense would merely raise more questions about whether Mr. Tate—who is heading Mr. Toussaint's old slate in the election—is nothing more than a figurehead who if given a full term will do the bidding of the man who elevated him. It would be ironic but not surprising if that was Mr. Toussaint's design: before becoming president, he frequently derided those running the local as puppets of then-International President Sonny Hall, himself a former Local 100 leader.

But it also raises troubling questions for union members as they receive their ballots, particularly because Mr. Tate has refused to take part in pre-election debates sought by his primary challenger, John Samuelsen. They must ask whether keeping Mr. Tate deep in the background is an indication that he is not capable of running the union or, if capable, is nonetheless going to be under Mr. Toussaint's thumb.

If they believe either of those possibilities is real, they must then ask if they really want three more years of Mr. Toussaint's brand of leadership.