Ballots Go Out in Heated TWU Election

A UNION DIVIDED: Transport Workers Union Local 100 Acting President Curtis Tate (left) has tried to use the powers of incumbency to improve his chances of winning a full term. Challenger John Samuelsen has sought to turn his status against him by branding him as someone who will be controlled by his predecessor, Roger Toussaint, who stepped down to take a top position in the local's international union.

Imagine if after the fierce Obama- McCain campaign, voters had cast their ballots last Nov. 4 and then had to wait until May to find out who their new President was.

That is essentially what is happening in the Transport Workers Union Local 100 election. With ballots to go out June 2—the day this newspaper hit stands—and due back June 20, members won't learn who their new top officers will be until December, when the tally is finally conducted.

International Contests a Tipoff?

That isn't to say one won't be able to guess. Since ballots for Local 100's international union TWU of America convention delegates will be immediately unsealed and counted, if either the incumbent United Invincible slate or the dissident Take Back Our Union slate won overwhelmingly in certain divisions, it would likely foretell the December results.

BARRY ROBERTS: From dissident leader to Tate loyalist.

Even in unions, where election inconsistencies are not uncommon, the delay in counting the ballots stands out as an oddity. The union passed a set of bylaw changes last year establishing the new election date by referendum despite objections from several union officers, although only 5,300—or 13 percent—of the 39,000-member local voted (slightly less than half of the membership was in good standing and eligible to vote at the time).

So the primary question is, with so few members voting in that referendum and with just 20,600 members now in good standing and therefore eligible to take part in the election, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, what fraction of that segment will decide who is going to be Local 100's next president, Curtis Tate of UI or John Samuelsen of TBOU?

Mr. Samuelsen doesn't believe this will matter too much, saying that in any union election nearly 45 percent of the membership doesn't vote. He assumes that the disengaged segment of the local consists of the same people who haven't brought themselves up to date on dues payments in order to secure their voting rights.

Tate Tries to Step Up

Mr. Tate, who has declined several requests over the past few months for an interview about his candidacy, has used his position as acting president— Roger Toussaint bequeathed him the title last November when he announced he would not run for a fourth term as president and took on full-time duties at TWU of America— to raise his profile. He recently denounced New York City Transit's decision to attrit out nearly 600 Station Agents to cut costs alongside rider advocates and City Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr. Last month he told members that he would be meeting with NYC Transit officials to revamp safety procedures for revenue-collection workers after two were shot at— with one injured—during an attempted robbery in Brooklyn.

"It's a shame when it takes a near double-murder to get their attention," he said in a statement.

Other than that, Mr. Tate has appeared at routine union functions, such as ethnic heritage days at Local 100's headquarters and memorials for transit workers killed in the line of duty. While vice president of the union's Rapid Transit Operations Division, he was instrumental in working with NYC Transit to devise new safety procedures for Maintenance of Way workers after two Track Workers were killed within five days of each other in April 2007.

Friendly But a Go-Along Guy

As a vice president who was elected on Mr. Toussaint's One Union slate, he sat on the union's executive board and voted consistently in the majority, and his critics point to his vote in favor of the ex-president's demand that vacancies for division vice president be filled through appointments rather than a special election. Even so, some critics have admitted that as a division officer he has been more inclusive than the heads of other divisions and is an affable person.

Despite the nice-guy image, the UI campaign has been hard-edged. Its blog has taunted the TBOU slate— which it calls Trying to Break Our Union—when its candidates have been found by the union's election committee to not have maintained a full-year of good standing, a Local 100 requirement to run for office. It has done everything to suggest that Mr. Samuelsen is a dangerous fifth columnist, accusing him of endorsing the withholding of dues payments and betraying the union's Irish-American heritage by accepting the endorsement of British transit union leader Bob Crow. Mr. Samuelsen brought a defamation lawsuit against Mr. Tate after a post on the blog insinuated that he had beaten African-American and Latino inmates during his brief stint two decades ago as a Correction Officer on Rikers Island.

Shifting Alliances

This election will be the second major candidacy for Mr. Samuelsen, a Brooklyn-based Track Inspector who was once aligned with Mr. Toussaint. He had been vice president of the union's Maintenance of Way Division until Mr. Toussaint forced him out after a disagreement regarding the 2005 sale of the union's Upper West Side building. After helping to produce the slender margin—seven votes out of 22,000 cast—against Mr. Toussaint's 2005 wage contract, Mr. Samuelsen unsuccessfully ran for secretary treasurer, Local 100's number two position, in 2006 on the dissident Rail and Bus United slate. Barry Roberts, who was the slate's presidential candidate, was since given the newly created post of administrative vice president by Mr. Toussaint and is seeking a full term on Mr. Tate's ticket.

Mr. Samuelsen enjoys something his slate didn't have in the 2006 election: a united dissident front. TBOU and UI are the only slates with presidential candidates. Three years ago, Mr. Toussaint was able to secure another term despite getting just 45 percent of the vote because he faced four opponents.

The TBOU message has been that Mr. Tate represents the Toussaint administration approach of blocking member participation, suppressing dissent, and—at least since the 2005 strike—having a partnership with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rather than aggressively challenging management aided by member participation.

'Message Has Resonated'

"Our message has resonated with the members," Mr. Samuelsen said. "We believe in the tried-and-true trade-union principle of organizing the rank and file."

Some political radicals in Local 100 have declined to endorse TBOU on the grounds that its program is too general. Station Agent Marty Goodman, a socialist activist and frequent rabble rouser during the public comment period of MTA board meetings, said the only thing TBOU candidates agreed on was that they opposed the Toussaint administration, and while they paid lip service to rank-and-file activism and militancy, Mr. Samuelsen had no specific plan or strategy to fight the MTA.

Mr. Goodman added that Mr. Samuelsen is adversely affected by Mr. Toussaint's past history. As a candidate in the now-defunct New Directions dissident caucus of Local 100, Mr. Toussaint, a former Track Worker and Trinidadian immigrant, vowed to be a more-confrontational leader than his predecessor,Willie James, and protested moves by that administration that he believed were undemocratic.

Meet the New Savior. . .

In essence, Mr. Toussaint was elected on the platform that he would be inclusive, democratic and militant, just as Mr. Samuelsen is now pledging. Mr. Goodman said Mr. Toussaint's example was a cautionary tale about believing such pledges.

The Revolutionary Transit Worker slate, which is fielding candidates in the RTO and MOW divisions, at one point considered joining TBOU. Conductor John Ferretti, who is running for a seat on the executive board with RTW, said that it declined to support Mr. Samuelsen because he had not organized rank-and-file actions against the now-rescinded threat of layoffs or safety problems for MOW workers. Indeed, when asked in 2007 if he would lead MOW members in a picket against the new track-safety rules he believed were inefficient, Mr. Samuelsen admitted that morale among the rank and file was too low to generate significant turnout.

But Mr. Samuelsen has countered that his slate has connected with members on the issues in their divisions. In the two divisions representing workers in the NYC Transit bus companies, TBOU has highlighted the relatively new practice of paying shuttle bus drivers—who are being used to cover closed subway routes— at the regular pay rate rather than overtime. Its candidate for vice president in the union's Private Lines Division, John Day, has protested the lack of pay parity with NYC Transit Bus Operators.

Some Key Differences

On the whole, TBOU has said it would not have opted for the current wage contract arbitration and vowed to establish a wide shop steward program. In the RTO Division, it has been more than a year since Local 100 credentialed new shop stewards.

As in most elections, it has been an uphill battle for the challengers. Many of them, Mr. Samuelsen said, including himself, have had to forgo sleep and family time to campaign while working their regular transit jobs. Before using his vacation time to campaign, it was typical for Mr. Samuelsen to go straight from working an overnight shift on the R line to campaign without sleeping.

The union's election committee hasn't made it easy, either. It has disqualified many TBOU candidates, often on questionable claims that they had not maintained a full year of good standing, though the committee overturned some of those rulings when candidates were able to prove they made timely payments.

Mr. Samuelsen pointed to one instance in which the committee disqualified candidates in the school bus division of the union after it ruled that they had not gone through the proper nomination procedure. Neutral monitor Dan Silverman overturned the decision when TBOU provided tapes of the candidates going through the process. Mr. Samuelsen said when that happened, "The union found another reason to disqualify them."

A Sign They're Worried?

Mr. Samuelsen said the incumbents' tactics have actually given him hope of winning, maintaining that UI would not be resorting to "trickery" if it didn't fear that his slate was a viable challenger.

"The union still continues to use the corrupt power of the incumbency to stymie us at ever turn," Mr. Samuelsen said last week. "I believe we will overcome it. We've stayed on message."