Local President Jailed: New York Transit Workers Approve Previously-Rejected Contract

It’s been a busy few months for New York City’s transit workers. Since they went on strike last December, they’ve voted down a contract, been given a re-vote on the same contract (it passed the second time), paid hefty fines for striking (public employee strikes are illegal in New York), seen their local president go to jail, and had their union forced into binding arbitration.

“I don’t think many people in the labor movement have seen anything like what we’ve been through in the past six months,” said J.P. Patafio, a member of Transport Workers Union Local 100, which represents New York’s 30,000-plus transit workers. “It’s been unbelievable.”

TO THE BIG HOUSE

The biggest transit story since the December strike has been Local 100 President Roger Toussaint’s April 24 jailing. Union leaders and politicians from New York and beyond came to Toussaint’s defense, condemning New York’s Taylor Law, which criminalizes public sector workers and union leaders who go on strike.

New York’s Central Labor Council called a pre-jailing solidarity rally on April 24, attended by Reverend Jesse Jackson and perennial Presidential candidate Al Sharpton, as well as AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

This pre-jailing solidarity stood in stark contrast to the lack of support Local 100 received from labor officials during the strike. Said Steve Downs, a subway train operator and Local 100 member, “Either during the strike or after the contract proposal got voted down, there was no effort [by New York’s labor leaders] to mobilize support for our contract.”

Downs noted that this lack of support from labor officials stood in contrast to strong support that members felt from workers and union activists around the city. Train operator Tim Schermerhorn agreed, noting that “even though the leaders didn’t step up, people of all occupations walked our picket lines, took collections at their workplaces. Teachers brought their classes out to the pickets.”

Schermerhorn continued, “People saw the solidarity they got from working people, and on the other hand they saw that the big names from the labor movement weren’t there.”

CHOOSING SIDES

In fact, some top labor officials worked with Toussaint and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to bring the strikers back to work—without a contract. According to The New York Times and CNN, Toussaint asked UNITE HERE President Bruce Raynor and Service Employees Local 32B-J President Mike Fishman to pressure Bloomberg into jumpstarting the bargaining process.

Raynor even told CNN that he was the one who convinced Bloomberg to push the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to drop its demand for increased worker contributions to their pension fund, in exchange for having workers pay more towards health care costs.

VOTE, RE-VOTE

The increased health care contribution was one factor that led to the contract’s rejection in January. Said Schermerhorn, “Nobody struck so that they could trade a pension giveback for a health care giveback.”

Patafio, an elected union rep in the bus department who supported the contract, disagreed: “The reality is that it’s a good contract…There were no productivity givebacks, and basically you could retire and have prescription and medical coverage.”

Local 100 members, however, voted the contract down, and leaders of the “Vote No” campaign adopted “No Givebacks” as a slogan, noting that the Transit Authority had a billion dollar surplus. Toussaint, however, did not demand that health care concessions be taken off the table.

Instead, according to Downs, after the rejection, “leadership made it clear they weren’t going to fight for anything… They never said, ‘We disagree with the members but we’ll honor their vote and fight for a better contract.’”

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Downs noted that following the contract’s rejection, Local 100 sent an email to all members that included the threat of far more drastic concessions, and ended on the ominous note, “Be careful what you wish for.”

Said Patafio, “With leadership, there was discussion of whether we could get a better deal. The reality is, it’s very hard to go on strike, get a better deal, have it voted down, and expect to get something better.”

But to Downs, the proposed contract didn’t represent a better deal. “There are gains in every contract—you can’t sell givebacks without something to sweeten the deal. The leadership wants to ignore how much that [health care giveback] is worth to the MTA.”

DIVISIONS GROWING

These disagreements over the proposed contract reflect broader dissension within Local 100. Following the high of the strike, said Patafio, “the ‘vote no’ campaign squandered a lot of the political capital we had gained. The pride we felt from striking was hurt by the high level of infighting.”

According to Schermerhorn, though, the infighting is a result of Local 100 leaders’ failures. Schermerhorn said that the energy of the strike wasn’t sapped by infighting, but by Toussaint’s calling off the strike prematurely, without any gains for the members.

“During the strike,” he said, “people could sense their power. Then, after three days out, [Toussaint] tells everybody ‘back to work,’ without a contract…People are demoralized because we had this great strike going and then [Toussaint] settled for a bad contract. ”

In the weeks that followed the contract’s rejection, Toussaint supporters began campaigning for a re-vote on the rejected offer. In April, the re-vote was held and the contract was voted up overwhelmingly.

The re-vote, according to Patafio, indicates that while members recognize the contract isn’t perfect, they see it as progress—and as preferable to binding arbitration.

Although Downs agreed that many members voted yes the second time to avoid arbitration, he believes the re-vote largely reflects members’ resignation. “The leadership made it very clear to the members that they wouldn’t fight for them…[and] that they didn’t respect the members’ vote on the contract. At this point, a lot of members feel that their actions don’t matter that much.”

Regardless of the re-vote, the MTA says its original contract proposal is off the table, and the union is now stuck in binding arbitration.

ELECTION IN THE OFFING

Meanwhile, tensions continue to mount inside Local 100. Local elections will be held this December, and the strike and contract will be key issues. According to Patafio, the elections couldn’t be coming at a better time: “Internal divisions have been very destructive…we need to get the members unified…We need to have an election.”

On this point, leaders and dissidents agree. “A lot of people are frustrated,” said Schermerhorn. “They saw the lack of leadership from Toussaint, and they want to do something about it.”

With local elections drawing closer and the contract process dragging on, the next six months in Local 100 may hold as many surprises as the last.