“Our union is facing the biggest challenge in 25 years,” said TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint. On June 1, the union will begin paying the highest price any labor union can imagine for the 2005 strike – the loss of dues check-off.
This loss comes as a result of a Taylor Law-mandated punishment levied against public sector unions that go on strike, regardless of the role management might have played in the process. While the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) suffers no reprisals, the union will no longer be able to collect members’ dues payments through automatic paycheck deductions.
“It’s all part of their ongoing attempt to punish Local 100 for standing up back in December 2005,” Toussaint said. “They think that without dues check-off, we will be a weak union. And they hope that because of this, transit workers won’t even think about challenging the MTA for a very long time.”
In a plea to his members, Toussaint said, “Transit workers cannot let this happen. We won’t sit back and let the MTA bankrupt the proud union that took 70 years to build. We won’t let the MTA starve our union into submission.”
On March 30, Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY), City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion joined Toussaint for a “Save Our Union” rally. The purpose of the rally was simply to kick off a dues drive and to urge members to answer this latest challenge by standing up “like union men and women and pay our dues ourselves. We have to show the MTA and the courts that we’ll keep their union alive and strong.”
Some observers, like CUNY Professor Josh Freeman, noting that TWU Local 100 “has a majority non-white membership, with African-Americans heavily represented” and many leaders who are African-American and Afro-Caribbean, said that race played a big part in the transit scenario. The loss of dues check-off is a particularly harsh punishment in an environment dominated by what Toussaint once called the MTA’s “plantation management” style. Although some changes have been noted, that style once caused workers to file some 16,000 grievances. How will the loss of dues check-off impact the union’s efforts to represent workers?
In an effort to make it as easy as possible for TWU Local 100’s 33,500 members to pay their dues directly, the union has set up a system that allows them to make payments through their checking account, by a credit card or in advance by check. Payments can be made online, by mail or by simply going to the Union Hall at 80 West End Avenue. A 24-hour hotline has also been set up to answer questions or solve problems members may have with the process.
And to make it even more accessible, in the next several weeks, the system will be brought to members at the depots, barns and shops. The union plans to set up wherever transit workers gather – in crew rooms and swing rooms and pick rooms in the next several weeks.
Toussaint tells members, “Now it is up to you. Seventy years ago transit management didn’t believe transit workers could ever get together. The Transport Workers Union is living proof they were wrong. Today, the MTA and the courts don’t believe that transit workers will come together to save our union. They are just as wrong today, and a stronger Local 100 will be the proof.”
Union leaders are determined to prove their point both with a successful “Save Our Union” drive and an upcoming April 17 Lobby Day, when they take hundreds of union members to Albany to urge elected officials to support, among other things, a reform of the draconian Taylor Law.
