Struggle of NYC transit workers continues

TWU President Roger Toussaint leads protest on Brooklyn Bridge as he marches to city jail for prison sentence. Photo: Roberto Mercado

They were a beautiful sight, marching across Brooklyn Bridge on April 24. Thousands of union members, side by side with civil rights and community activists, were supporting President Roger Toussaint of Local 100, Transport Workers Union. Toussaint was on his way to the Tombs prison in lower Manhattan to serve a 10-day sentence for leading an “illegal” three-day strike during the height of the holiday season this winter.

Many chants and signs targeted the infamous, anti-union, anti-worker Taylor Law, which outlaws strikes in the public sector in New York state. As Toussaint entered the Tombs, he expressed the strength of his convictions: “I stand here today because a judge has found me guilty of contempt of court. The truth of the matter is, I have nothing but contempt for a system that gives employers free rein to abuse workers.”

The strike, which began on Dec. 20, was authorized by an overwhelming vote of the membership as the only alternative to the city’s attack on the union. The power of the three-day strike sent shock waves through the establishment and showed that illegal laws can be defied through the will and sacrifice of the workers.

WW photo: Anne Pruden

The 34,000 transit workers for three days crippled the New York citadel of high finance. Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. George Pataki, the capitalist media and the bourgeois courts ganged up on the transit workers’ leader, an immigrant from Trinidad, furious that he had shut down the city during the peak holiday shopping time. Toussaint and TWU members, who comprise multiple nationalities, were characterized by the officials as “thugs” who should all be jailed.

Wall Street wail

In a vengeful April 21 editorial in the Wall Street Jour nal, mouthpiece of finance capital, anger boiled over. It confirmed the huge losses suffered by businesses: “New York Mayor Michael Bloom berg ... has estimated that the three-day strike last December cost the city $1 billion in foregone business. In that light, the fines and lost dues seem mild.”

The editorial praised the decision of Supreme Court Justice Theodore T. Jones, calculated to financially break the union. It said, “The real hammer was [the judge’s] ruling that the union’s right to the automatic deduction of dues from workers’ paychecks should be suspended for 90 days, and possibly longer.” The court fined the union $2.5 million and ordered the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to deduct two days’ pay from the rank and file for each day of the strike.

Toussaint immediately criticized the ruling. “The results are unfair, excessive and political. ... The MTA engaged in provocation and there was no responsibility for that assigned by the court.” Toussaint was referring to the MTA’s bargaining tactics, including a demand that the union accept a two-tier provision assigning a pension cost to new hires—a violation of state law. Currently, under the Taylor Law, no sanctions are levied against management when they violate their own laws.

When a settlement of the strike was first reached, TWU members rejected it by a narrow margin of seven votes, out of over 20,000 cast. But recently they voted by over 70 percent to reverse this and accept the contract.

They are now on a collision course with the MTA, which has arrogantly ignored this democratic process and swept from the table the tentative agreement that it had signed. It is demanding binding arbitration under Taylor Law procedures. Toussaint has rejected binding arbitration as a violation of the rank and file’s right to vote on any subsequent contract. It is unclear what the outcome of current contract talks will be.

In truth, the union was provoked by the MTA, which refused to bargain in good faith. Toussaint’s “crime” was to lead the union’s fight for a decent contract. Mayor Bloom berg, Governor Pataki and the media then orchestrated an anti-union, racist campaign. But the riding public and New York’s overwhelmingly multinational and working class communities didn’t buy the attack on the union.

Each work day, under hazardous working conditions and unsafe environments, the TWU workers get almost 8 million subway and bus riders to their destinations. In return, the MTA issues 16,000 disciplinary citations annually. Toussaint characterized the attitude of MTA management as “plantation justice.”

Necessary act of civil disobedience

In a number of speeches, Toussaint invoked the names of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., referring to the infamous days when racism and segregation were sanctioned by law. He spoke reverently about Parks’ determination, in the face of imprisonment, to defy an illegal and immoral law that kept Black people in the back of the bus. Her courage led to the historic Montgomery bus boycott of 50 years ago, forced the end of racial segregation on public buses and started the modern civil rights movement.

Today there is another tsunami of protest as millions of undocumented workers and their allies have taken to the streets, demanding civil and human rights. It is fitting that on April 1, tens of thousands marched across this same Brooklyn Bridge to demand legalization and respect for 11 to 12 million undocumented workers.

Repression breeds resistance

A common thread of struggle weaves the various people’s movements together toward a classwide unity. The undocumented, African-American workers and other peoples of color and their communities are under attack from the government through anti-union, anti-worker repressive laws and the courts that uphold them. The organized labor movement today has a multinational rank and file, with many low-paid workers, especially in service industries. Women as well as lesbian, gay, bi and trans workers are integrated in this broad mosaic. The potential to alter the relationship of class forces has never been more favorable.

May Day is coming—the international workers’ day. The struggle for the eight-hour day, so tied in with the Hay market Massacre in Chicago in 1886, became the rallying cry of the masses against bosses and oppressors and brought forth the perspective of a socialist future. May Day 2006 is the 120th anniversary of that historic event. Boycotts, withholding labor, forums, teach-ins, school walk outs, a day without shoppers, and other forms of protest are planned for this special day to honor the contributions of all immigrants and their fight for dignity, respect and legal rights.

On May 1, TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint will be in Tombs jail. His imprisonment expresses eloquently the spirit of defiance and resistance that characterizes May Day.