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State of the unions
The Transport Workers Union’s new leader will be announced sometime after the secret mail-in ballots are counted on December 15th. But leading up to the election, a leadership struggle is underway that has the potential to shake things up for the union—and maybe even the city.
Current President Roger Toussaint, who became a very well known figure due to last December’s transit strike, is running for election to his third three-year term. But he faces what are shaping up to be strong challenges from a handful of his former allies on opposition slates.
They have hired political strategists and communications teams and are campaigning like any other candidate for higher office.
One slate is called Union Democracy, composed of union members who broke away from New Directions, the slate that got Toussaint first elected in 2000. It includes Ainsley Stewart, William Pelletier and John Mooney.
Stewart, who is running for union president, would not return a call for comment on the race.
The other slate is Rail & Bus United. Barry Roberts, the elected vice-president of the Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority department, is the slate’s presidential candidate. The other candidates include Nat Cummings and John Samuelsen, who was elected as part of Toussaint’s reform slate in 2000.
Combined, the three men represent more than 19,000 members and have ties to all three sectors of the union—bus, subway and rail.
They hope that by spanning three sectors of the union, their prospects will be strengthened.
“Unions have always represented workers from many different parts of an industry and have been most successful when they work to manage those disagreements on a day-to-day basis,” said Mike Merrill, dean of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies.
Local 100 represents the city’s 37,000 bus, subway, and rail operators, and has traditionally been the largest and most influential group within the Transport Workers Union, which was founded in 1934. The group falls behind only the New York police and fire departments in striking power in the city.
“The ability of the TWU to affect the city is tremendous,” said Bob Linn, who was once the city’s chief labor negotiator and now consults on labor negotiating.
In addition to dissatisfaction with how Toussaint handled the strike, there are allegations that the one-time reformer has become undemocratic, firing as he pleases when people disagree with him or oppose him.
Toussaint himself was elected as an opposition candidate in 2000. According to Bruce McIver, the commissioner of labor relations under Mayor Ed Koch (D), dissent is a characteristic of the TWU—and one that keeps the TWU from being, in his opinion, as powerful as it could be.
“Leadership is always a little bit precarious,” he said.
By all accounts, the failure of the current leadership to negotiate a new contract with the city that improves workers’ wages and benefits was the catalyst to the formation of the opposition slates.
“To have a strike and not have a settlement nine months later—I’m not sure that’s ever happened before,” McIver said.
Toussaint was jailed during the strike. And in early October, a judge ruled that the union would have to pay $2.5 million in fines, or $1 million for each day of the strike.
Though the strike was ultimately ineffectual, it was an example of Toussaint’s power.
“I think the fact that the strike was held as long as it did and the numbers of people who held out despite the threats to their livelihood and their jobs shows considerable strength and considerable leadership,” Mike Merrill of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center for Labor Studies said.
The Rail & Bus United slate has lashed out at Toussaint over his inability to negotiate a contract.
“Instead of uniting us to fight for our rights and benefits against an aggressive MTA management, he has served to undermine the ability of elected representatives of union members,” Roberts said in a statement.
Toussaint did not respond to requests for comment on the race.
In assessing the strike and the negotiations, McIver attributed the contract failure to a tactical error. Instead of shoring up support for the contract, McIver said Toussaint tried to change the minds of union members who opposed the contract.
“He went back in a way to the part of the union he came out of and didn’t pay attention to the more stable group that supported him during the strike,” McIver said.
There is some worry that the city could be affected if the union is not able to come to some consensus in terms of a contract.
“The danger in this whole thing from the city’s point of view,” McIver said, “is that the ongoing trouble with the contract somehow bursts into a new crisis with strikes.”
In addition to dissatisfaction with how Toussaint handled the strike, there are allegations that the one-time reformer has become undemocratic, firing as he pleases when people disagree with him or oppose him.
However, McIver said this sort of behavior is far from atypical for a union leader.
“He’s fighting to preserve his leadership,” he said, “and those kinds of struggles can be pretty brutal at times.”
The future is somewhat uncertain for the TWU, as it remains unclear whether the leadership struggle will be a mortal wound or something that makes the union even stronger.
“Usually an open and honest debate doesn’t weaken unions,” said Merrill, of the Harry Van Arsdale Jr. Center.
“What would weaken it would be if people weren’t willing to accept the results of the election and instead of uniting behind whoever’s chosen would continue as an opposition."