TWU Local 100 President Hangs On After Election

by Marty Goodman / January 2007 issue of Socialist Action Newspaper

On Dec. 15, the same day an arbitrator handed down a post-strike contract decision for the Transport Workers Union Local 100 (see accompanying article), Roger Toussaint was declared president of Local 100 for his third term in a union-wide election. Toussaint received 45% of votes cast against four opponents. He also retained control of the union’s Executive Board. About 55% of the 38,000 members voted.

Toussaint, whose slate was called “One Union,” said that members had “answered the challenge and refused to dishonor their own fight.”

In 2003, Toussaint defeated a single opponent, Noel Acevedo, of the Members First Slate, with 60% of the vote. Acevedo was a long-time member of the New Directions Caucus, which was bureaucratically crushed by Toussaint in 2001. Toussaint was the New Directions presidential candidate in his successful 2000 election campaign. Members First was a latch-up between several former ND activists and the union’s old guard.

This time Toussaint’s strongest opponent was MaBSTOA bus Vice President Barry Roberts of the Rail and Bus United slate (RBU), which received 35% of the vote. RBU represented the old guard’s traditional power base in buses plus a number of former Toussaint loyalists bureaucratically purged from staff. In 2003, Roberts won his vice president post (VPs head divisions with thousands of workers) on the Members First Slate. He is also a VP in the TWU International.

During the strike, Roberts wrote a letter to Toussaint urging a quick end to the strike, which many viewed as a threat to scab. The TWU International issued its own letter during the walkout urging strikers to cross picket lines. Not one of the several TWU International officers on the Local 100 Executive Board voted to strike or condemned the International’s treachery.

Toussaint had an easy time discrediting Roberts, who repeatedly refused Toussaint’s challenges to a debate. On the Executive Board, Roberts voted against going on strike; voted to end the strike without seeing a contract; and voted for the contract when it was presented to the Executive Board. He later posed as a contract critic, saying the strike should have been longer.

The transparent bankruptcy of RBS compelled many a worker to hold their nose and vote for Toussaint.

Two other slates fielding presidential candidates were Fresh Start, headed by Train Operator Mike Carrube, and Union Democracy, headed by Car Equipment Vice-President Ainsley Stewart. Stewart was an outspoken critic of Toussaint’s authoritarian methods and the 2005 contract.

However, he was wrong about the cost of the new deduction, which Toussaint used to charge his contract opponents with misinformation, despite his own. Stewart is also a TWU International vice president who voted against striking.

Both Fresh Start and Union Democracy had important criticisms of Toussaint but did not provide a long-term strategy to defeat the MTA. Both slates received about 10% of the vote. A forth candidate, Anthony Staley, was a distant fourth.

On the Executive Board, as of now, Toussaint’s support fell to about 30 out of the 47 members. RBU won two of seven Vice-President positions. A third RBU V.P. candidate in the Car Equipment Division lost to One Union by just two votes after repeated recounts. Many election protests remain unresolved. Previously, five of seven VPs were Toussaint opponents.

In Rapid Transit Operations (RTO), Steve Downs, a New Directions founder and Train Operator, narrowly won election to Division Chair as part of the Independent Team, which did not field or endorse anyone for president. One Union took almost all other RTO posts. Although critical of RBS in 2006, Downs was a prominent supporter of the Members First Slate in 2003. In that election he ran as the unsuccessful VP candidate for RTO alongside Barry Roberts, the Members First VP candidate in MaBSTOA bus, who won.

In Private Bus Lines, Toussaint’s VP candidate lost badly for re-election. For now, RBU VP candidate Rod Bailey has beaten Fresh Start Slate by some 200 votes, although the latter swept several Executive Board seats and lower posts.

However, the RBU vote is being challenged in Private Bus Lines; 99 ballots were hand-collected at Baumann/Yorktown, all of which voted RBU. In addition, at least 700 PBL voters in Westchester County, a Fresh Start stronghold, did not receive ballots. A re-run will be held there. Fresh Start says that the problem in Westchester was known since the 2003 election but deliberately not corrected.

Local-wide, many have concluded that a unified opposition slate would have defeated Toussaint. Perhaps that is true, but it begs the question: What would happen on day one of such a regime? Defeating the MTA during the crisis of capitalism requires a fighting union. Without that perspective little will change.