Jail and fines for N.Y. transit strike

by Mary Goodman / May 2006 issue of Socialist Action newspaper

In a decision that will impact labor for years, the New York state Supreme Court has found the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 guilty of violating injunctions stemming from a two and one-half day transit strike that shut down New York City in December. Local 100 struck to defend future workers against a management contract offer that would force new hires to pay 4% more toward their pensions.

Doing the dirty work of the boss class, Judge Theodore T. Jones ruled April 10 that Local 100 President Roger Toussaint be sentenced to 10 days in jail and fined $1000. Two other top officers were fined $1000, but received no jail time.

On April 17, Jones fined the local $2.5 million. Compared to the $1 million fine levied after the 11-day transit strike in 1980, the penalty is harsh. Jones also ruled that Local 100 be hit with the “indeterminate” loss of automatic union dues check-off, a potentially crippling blow. The union can appeal after 90 days.

Added to the union’s difficulties, it still doesn’t have a new contract despite a recent second ratification vote on a December post-strike agreement (see article below).

The injunctions were brought by the N.Y. state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), led by multi-millionaire Chairman Peter Kalikow and Michael Bloomberg, New York City’s billionaire Republican mayor. The injunctions, which included a fine of $1 million a day for striking, were based on the state’s infamous Taylor law, which prohibits strikes by public employees.

The union vowed to appeal the fines and loss of dues check-off, but not the jail sentence. Some 32,000 subway and city bus workers had already been penalized two days’ pay for each day of the strike under Taylor Law provisions.

Upon hearing his sentence on April 10, Toussaint likened the strike to “civil disobedience,” evoking the civil rights struggle against racism. His response, however, was a far cry from the defiant tone set by Local 100’s founding president, Mike Quill, who told the judge to “drop dead in your black robes” for sentencing him to jail for leading the 1966 transit strike.

New York’s boss class was eager to punish the mostly African American and Latino transit workers for daring to rebel. The court rulings were also a stern warning to the city’s heavily unionized workforce.

Symbolic of the ruling class’s contempt for workers, Bloomberg called the strike “thuggish behavior,” language strikers viewed as racism. The Daily News editorialized, “Throw Roger from the Train.”

Observers saw in the court decisions the hand of Republican Gov. George Pataki, who is eyeing a presidential run. Pataki called for severely punishing the union, particularly Toussaint. Pataki also pledged to block the MTA’s contract side-agreement to refund overpayments to a pension fund made by half of Local 100’s members.

On April 24, after leading a dramatic protest march of some 1000 Local 100 members and supporters across the Brooklyn Bridge, Toussaint turned himself in to prison authorities in lower Manhattan.

On the march were several politicians and union bureaucrats identified with the Democratic Party, none of whom had actually defended the union’s right to strike during the walkout. In fact, Democratic Party leaders, The New York Times reported, had urged Toussaint to end the strike.

In contrast, Socialist Action’s statement released April 24 said, in part, "Transit workers were right to strike! Release President Toussaint now! Jail the real criminals: Judge Jones, the MTA Board, Pataki, Bloomberg and Attorney General Spitzer!"

Toussaint was released after serving five days, due to days off for good behavior and a law that prohibits release on Sundays. Outside the jail, a daily picket of around 100 was maintained, mostly union staff and supporters from other unions.

The media coverage of his jail time is being used by Toussaint to build his image as a labor leader. However, transit workers may be harder to convince. Toussaint called off the strike without a contract and days later announced an agreement with major concessions. Union elections are next December.

A bipartisan attack on labor

The rulings against Local 100 say it all about capitalism’s clubhouse (in)justice system. Judge Jones was elected as the candidate of four capitalist parties—the Democratic, Republican, Conservative, and Working Families parties, the latter a fake labor party that usually supports Democrats, but also some Republicans.

Representing the MTA in court was the office of N.Y. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, who signed-off on an MTA injunction for the third time in 2005. His party’s favorite for governor next December, Spitzer asked Jones to either jail Toussaint or to require that Toussaint perform “community service,” and urged him to “not listen to the union to mitigate [reduce]” fines. The MTA/Spitzer sought a $3 million fine, but Jones actually reduced it to $2.5 million.

Spitzer built his persona as a foe of Wall Street in a series of lawsuits, yet none resulted in jail time—apparently too harsh for corporate crooks but quite appropriate for labor leaders!

Recently, several Democrats called for reforming the Taylor Law, but carefully avoided calling for ending the anti-strike provision—the heart of the repressive law.

In fact, the Taylor law was passed by Democrats as well as Republicans following the 1966 transit strike. December’s “illegal” strike did more to fight the Taylor law than a thousand windy press conferences called by Democratic Party hacks!