The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 70/No. 17           May 1, 2006  
 
 
N.Y. court fines transit union,
orders president to jail for 10 days
Labor protest rally called
 (front page)
 
BY MICHAEL ITALIE  
NEW YORK—In a blow to the labor movement here, a State Supreme Court judge on April 17 fined Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 $2.5 million and suspended its dues checkoff rights. A week earlier, Judge Theodore Jones had sentenced Local 100 president Roger Toussaint to 10 days in jail. The court actions were meted out as punishment for the three-day walkout in December by 34,000 subway and bus workers trying to draw the line on concessions.

In response, the New York State AFL-CIO and the city’s Central Labor Council have called a solidarity rally for April 24 at 4:00 p.m. at Brooklyn Borough Hall to protest the attacks on the TWU. On that day Toussaint is expected to report to the court to begin his jail term. “We were engaged in civil disobedience,” Toussaint said at his sentencing for violation of the Taylor Law, which bans strikes by public employees. He noted that the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) faces no legal action for pursuing “an unlawful bargaining proposal, such as attempts to impose an illegal pension on us.”

“The fines are a ploy to break the union,” Alexander Woolfe, a train operator at Forest Hills, Queens, told the Militant. “Working men and women are the target.” Pointing to the strikes or threats of walkouts by private sanitation workers, doormen, and other members of Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, as well as Macy’s employees, Woolfe asked, “Why is this going on? All of us can’t be greedy.”

On April 18, Local 100 announced that its members approved by a 71 percent majority the same contract they had rejected by a slim margin in January. The three-year pact includes gains on pensions, 3 percent and 4 percent annual wage increases, and a concession to make first-ever worker payments toward medical coverage. The MTA dismissed the vote as an “empty gesture.” The transit bosses have won a ruling by the Public Employment Relations Board to begin binding arbitration proceedings for a contract, which many workers believe would result in even worse terms.

The court also imposed fines of more than $100,000 each against two Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) locals in Staten Island and Queens that had joined the December walkout.

In 90 days Local 100 can request reinstatement of the dues checkoff, which it lost for four months following a 1980 walkout. Union dues will again be automatically deducted from the paychecks of ATU members in 30 days.

“They’re against us because we went on strike,” said Local 100 member Salvador Soto, a bus maintenance worker in Queens. “If you don’t use your voice they wouldn’t listen to you. They’re trying to take away our dignity.”  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home