Transit workers end strike

Dec. 22—The 34,000 members of Transport Workers Union Local 100, led by President Roger Toussaint, decided to suspend their powerful three-day strike today after the Metropolitan Transit Authority agreed to drop its “final offer” and return to the negotiating table to work out a new contract.

TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint announces vote to end strike. He is joined by (left to right) Local 100 Recording Secretary Darlyne Lawson, ATU 1056 Pres. Ken Broderick, ATU 726 Pres. Angelo Tanzi, Local 100 Sec.-Treas. Ed Watt, and ATU Intl. VP Larry Hanley.

One main sticking point had been the union’s demand that the MTA take off the table its insistence that all new employees pay a 6 percent pension contribution. Toussaint, at a news conference today, spelled out the union’s position that the MTA had forced it to strike by illegally insisting on pension changes.

According to state mediators, who were brought in to resolve these thorny issues, the final settlement would take a few days to work out. In the meantime, both the union and management are forbidden from discussing the progress of the negotiations.

Following Toussaint’s recommendation to suspend the strike, the Local 100 Executive Board voted overwhelmingly to support their union president and instructed their members to put down their picket signs and return to work.

Threats to jail the union leader were then lifted, but not the onerous fines on the union, starting at $1 million a day, imposed under the state’s anti-labor Taylor Law.

New York Gov. George Pataki, a millionaire, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire, had vowed that there would be no negotiations unless the transit workers returned to work. However, these servants of the ruling class toned down their ultimatums after the strike demonstrated the unity of the workers and cost city businesses hundreds of millions of dollars a day in lost sales.

The militancy of the transit workers in walking out despite all the pressures on them won the respect of the labor movement. Even a majority of the riding public polled by various media blamed the strike on the intransigence of the MTA, which has a $1 billion surplus but is trying to make new hires pay more for pensions and health care.

The workers also stress that they want respect and dignity. A vicious attack on Local 100 leaders by Mayor Bloomberg, who publicly described them as “thuggish,” backfired, leading to even greater public sympathy. As one worker said to reporters, “We walked out strong, and we walk back stronger.”