TWU weakened anti-union Taylor Law

Before being reelected president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, Roger Toussaint told a recent labor conference, “It was our proudest hour. We did not strike to make history. We struck and so we made history.” It was a thoughtful summary of the heroic three-day transit strike that shut New York City down a year ago, paralyzing the financial center of the world.

Toussaint, who was born in Trinidad, had faced four challengers in the election. His victory showed the maturity of the rank and file and their recognition that their president had steered the union through the pressure, tension and fear that a strike which challenged the infamous Taylor Law could weaken or even destroy the union. The Taylor Law prohibits New York state public employees from striking. Breaking it to get economic and social justice is what made the three-day strike historic. The workers went in strong and came out stronger.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority and the boss politicians were ill-prepared for Local 100’s decision to break the law. They were convinced that disarray in the labor movement—the TWU International sabotaged the strike with a call to cross the picket lines—and the Taylor Law, with its prohibitive penalties, would force Toussaint to bargain on their terms. The miscalculation cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.

On Dec. 20, 2005, 33,000 transit workers walked out in defiance of the Taylor Law, defending the principle of “no contract, no work.” The strike, which took place during the hectic Christmas week when giant retailers counted on ringing up big sales, was attacked viciously by Gov. George Pataki and billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who called the strikers “cowardly” and “selfish.” Other politicians, television commentators and the capitalist newspapers, led by the New York Post with a headline “Jail Them,” joined the anti-worker and racist pack.

Pataki and Bloomberg swore there would be no agreement as long as “thugs” and “criminals” were on strike. The strike ended only when the MTA secretly agreed to sign on to many of the union’s demands—information revealed recently by Toussaint. This contract was rejected by the membership by a margin of seven votes, but later, in a second vote on the contract, it was overwhelmingly accepted. The MTA rejected that second vote, leading to binding arbitration under the Taylor Law.

The power of Local 100 was awesome. They stripped from the bargaining table MTA demands for a two-tier system of health and retirement benefits, under which new hires would have had to contribute to health insurance coverage. Under the old contract, workers paid nothing for a basic plan.

Management wanted to raise the retirement age from 55 to 62. It pushed for broadbanding many job titles—combining two jobs into one—with the power to arbitrarily make assignments in violation of the contract. It wanted to run the trains with no conductors and gradually eliminate tollbooth operators and platform workers. It offered an insulting 2 percent wage increase, even though it had a $1 billion surplus.

The strike paralyzed the financial center. Nothing moved for over 7 million passengers daily who depended on train and bus service to get to work or shop. Yet a majority of riders supported the strike, particularly among the oppressed nationalities. They appreciated the dedication and hardships of transit workers, overwhelmingly Black, Latin@ and women, who must work in intense heat or cold under unsafe and dangerous conditions, both above and under ground. They understood the racism endured by these sisters and brothers and supported their demand for dignity, respect and justice.

This Dec. 17, almost a year to the day after the strike began, and following Toussaint’s reelection, the chief arbitrator of a three-member panel set up under the Taylor Law imposed a contract identical to the one the MTA had rejected. The arbitration involved 1,742 pages of transcript, 172 exhibits and 23 witnesses. It cost the MTA millions.

Chief Arbitrator George Nicolau called the binding settlement “most just and reasonable.” But why should Local 100 and its members have to pay prohibitive fines for a settlement that was “just and reasonable”? Under the Taylor Law, a state judge had fined the union $2.5 million and each striking member six days’ pay. He also decreed an end to dues checkoff and three and a half days in jail for Toussaint.

This settlement parallels the union’s original demands of the previous year, which the MTA fought relentlessly and ruthlessly. The agreement calls for raises averaging 3.5 percent over 37 months, distributes a $131.7 million pension refund to about 20,000 transit workers and provides for the first time a Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. It also will enhance health benefits for retirees before Medicare kicks in.

Most important, the union stopped the MTA from imposing two-tier plans, which would burden new hires with excessive costs and cuts in health and pension benefits. In a trade-off, union members must contribute 1.5 percent of their pay toward the health plan for the first time, a controversial issue that led to divisions among the membership. Other sections of the settlement—like screening out thousands of disciplinary suspensions, broadbanding jobs, and paid maternal leave—have not been revealed.

The Taylor Law may well be a casualty of the historic strike if Toussaint and the rank and file provide leadership and mobilize the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers throughout the state to confront the incoming governor and the legislators. The will of public sector workers to withhold their labor in the Local 100 tradition can pose a threat. The TWU strike taught Pataki and Bloomberg that using the Taylor Law to impose harsh giveback contracts could backfire and lead to a costly strike.

Will incoming Gov. Eliot Spitzer learn from their miscalculations?

The three-day strike has national significance as a model for a fightback. Strikes are on the rise as corporate America continues to interpret the labor movement as passive and pliant. Health insurance and pensions are on the chopping block. In the U.S., 47 million people are already without health insurance and millions more are under-insured.

Corporate demands for two-tier compensation and benefit systems are sweeping the country abetted by Chapter 11 bankruptcies, which dump defined-benefit pensions and other contractual obligations.

Restructuring the work force and consolidating, eliminating and outsourcing jobs to non-union contractors are swelling the profits of greedy bosses, which are distributed in outrageous bonuses and obscene salaries to cutthroat CEOs.

A rumble of resistance and struggle is rising from below. Resisting unjust laws and racist practices will surface. Divisions will break down as overcoming race, national and class issues feeds the emergence of one unified force, though these questions remain a huge challenge for the men and women of many diverse backgrounds in the work force.

The struggle of 12 million undocumented immigrants must be high on labor’s agenda, along with the militarization of the economy and U.S. imperialism’s worldwide objectives. The three-day transit strike will be long remembered as a strike that broke the law, got a contract and came out stronger.