The New York Times, April 24, 2006, Monday

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
The New York Times

April 24, 2006 Monday
Late Edition - Final

SECTION: Section B; Column 5; Metropolitan Desk; Pg. 5

HEADLINE: The Long March to Jail

BYLINE: By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

BODY:
When Roger Toussaint, the transit workers' union president, leads a procession of chanting union members and labor leaders across the Brooklyn Bridge today on his way to a jail cell in Manhattan, it will be only the latest bizarre twist in a contract fight that never seems to end.
''We've seen some of the most complex and strange events that anyone has ever seen in a labor dispute,'' said Mr. Toussaint, who headed a 60-hour transit shutdown in December that forced many cold, disgruntled New Yorkers to walk across bridges themselves.
In January, subway and bus workers rejected a 37-month deal by a razor-thin margin of 7 votes out of 22,461 cast. But in a revote announced last Tuesday, members overwhelmingly approved the exact same deal, 71 percent to 29 percent.
Meanwhile, leaders of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, who once urged the union to hold a revote after members first rejected the deal, have called the new vote ''an empty gesture.''
Just days after the two sides reached the original agreement, Gov. George E. Pataki, who controls the authority, denounced it for being too generous to workers who had engaged in an illegal strike.
About the only thing clear is that Mr. Toussaint will head today to the Tombs, the jail in Lower Manhattan. But first he will have quite a send-off -- a 4 p.m. march across the Brooklyn Bridge with union members and labor leaders, including the A.F.L.-C.I.O.'s president, John J. Sweeney. And transit workers are planning to hold vigils outside the Tombs for a few hours each day.
In sentencing him to 10 days in jail, Justice Theodore T. Jones of State Supreme Court in Brooklyn said Mr. Toussaint had shown contempt for the law by heading an illegal strike.
But the jail stay, some labor experts say, could end up helping Mr. Toussaint by turning him into a martyr. The sentence, they said, could help clinch his re-election later this year in a fractious union where dissidents have repeatedly edged out embattled leaders in elections.
In an interview on Friday, Mr. Toussaint said his jailing was ''stupid politically.''
''It's one thing if you threaten a jail sentence while a strike is on,'' he said. ''It's another thing to send someone to jail three months afterward.''
Insisting that the state's Taylor Law, which prohibits strikes by public employees, was biased against labor, he said authority officials had engaged in illegal behavior but were not being punished. Even though the Taylor Law bars public-sector employers and unions from insisting on pension changes in contract talks, the authority's negotiators demanded that the union agree to a far less generous pension plan for new transit workers.
Last Monday, Justice Jones fined the union, Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union, $2.5 million and suspended its ability to collect members' dues automatically from paychecks, a move that will cost it millions. These moves, union officials said, could bankrupt Local 100.
''It's a pretty high penalty,'' said Harry C. Katz, dean of the Cornell School of Industrial and Labor Relations. ''It will make unions in the city think twice about striking. Some people say this will make unions more compliant. But unions will just look for other ways to exert influence -- and that might take the form of exerting more political influence.''
Mr. Toussaint voiced little concern about going to jail. ''I'll deal with it,'' he said. ''To me, the drama is the contract and the ratification.''
After announcing that union members had ratified the deal, Mr. Toussaint said Local 100 would go to court if the authority's board does not vote on it at its regular meeting this Wednesday. Authority officials have said there will not be a vote.
The authority asserts that the original deal was rendered moot as soon as union members voted it down in January. Seemingly eager to walk away from the deal, the authority petitioned for binding arbitration, saying the dispute had reached an impasse, and the state's Public Employment Relations Board agreed.
The union argues that now that it has carried out its legal responsibility to do its utmost to get its members to ratify the deal, the authority must do its best to get its board to approve it as well.
The deal called for raises averaging 3.5 percent in each of three years and for the workers, who previously paid no health insurance premiums, to pay 1.5 percent of their wages toward premiums.
The union opposes arbitration, partly because it would deny transit workers a vote on the outcome and partly because an arbitration panel cannot include in its ruling two provisions of the original deal that union members hailed: an improved health plan for retirees and the repayment of about $130 million to 20,000 members who had made excess contributions into the pension system. Under state law, arbitration panels in public employee disputes cannot make decisions regarding pensions and retirees.
''It's too bad the M.T.A. doesn't just ratify the agreement,'' said Dean Katz. ''You basically have them grinding the workers' face into the ground when these workers already have morale problems. I can't imagine that bodes well for the quality of service.''
Several labor experts said they believed the authority's strategy was to wait until the arbitration panel was about to issue a ruling -- which could take months -- and then resume negotiations to press the union to accept changes in the original deal.
''I don't think it's possible without the structure of the arbitration in place to get a deal done,'' said Barry Feinstein, a member of the authority's board.
Authority officials say they hope the union will agree to drop the provision that Mr. Pataki denounced most vigorously, a side agreement in which the authority promised to repay the $130 million in pension contributions even if lawmakers in Albany blocked that provision.
Union officials oppose such a concession, fearing that Mr. Pataki will prevent the transit workers from ever receiving the $130 million. But some are looking to a possible Democratic successor to Mr. Pataki to make good on the deal.
It was Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, as the state's chief legal officer, who asked Justice Jones to fine the union and jail Mr. Toussaint. But now the union might look to a future Governor Spitzer to make good on the $130 million pension deal that the authority's board seems eager to turn its back on.
Yet another strange twist.


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GRAPHIC: Photo: Roger Toussaint, transit union president, is to head to jail today. (Photo by Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times)