New York Daily News, December 10, 2006, Sunday

New York Daily News -

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/478716p-402757c.html
A more perfect union?
BY PETE DONOHUEDAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Sunday, December 10th, 2006

For three days, more than 33,000 otherwise ordinary New Yorkers blatantly broke the law.
Bus drivers, subway conductors, mechanics and cleaners walked off the job and crippled the city, fully aware that they were violating the state's Taylor Law prohibiting such a strike - and that they might pay a heavy price.
The walkout cost the union $2.5 million in fines and still hasn't produced a contract.
Yet nearly a year later, Transport Workers Union Local 100 President Roger Toussaint may actually be able to declare a symbolic victory.
Consider the developments since last December, when the 33,700 bus and subway workers refused to move New York:
The union survived the stiff financial penalties - even collecting donations from union sympathizers.
Polls showed that many New Yorkers actually sided with the union. One poll taken during the strike found 52% backed the union; 40% backed the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and city. Nearly 55% felt the union's demands were fair, an NY1 poll found.
The TWU resisted an MTA demand for a different pension formula for new hires. That would have created another, lower-tiered class of workers - weakening the union and possibly putting municipal unions at risk of a similar ploy.
Some of the union's harshest complaints - including an allegedly unfair disciplinary system - got wide attention. Gov.-elect Eliot Spitzer has said he wants to improve labor relations.
Workers are about to get a new contract, courtesy of an arbitrator.
"In some ways, it's too early to judge who lost and who won because we don't know the ultimate terms of the contract," said City University of New York history professor Joshua Freeman, an expert on the TWU. "But I do think it was a loss for the MTA. "
Whether it was a loss for Toussaint will be resolved shortly. He's engaged in a stiff battle for reelection; the ballots are due to be tallied Friday.
He also had to spend five days in jail for leading the strike - although his stature in the labor world has risen.
Yet some of his members blame him for his tactics; some questioned the wisdom of conducting an illegal strike, while other more militant workers wished the union stayed out longer.
There's no question workers have paid a steep price for their stand, said Mitchell Moss, professor of urban policy and planning at NYU's Wagner School of Public Service. Each was docked six days' pay for taking on the MTA. "They are suffering," Moss said. "They lost money ... and many doubt the strike was a wise decision."
The key issues that led to the strike had little to do with wages. The TWU sought to improve, or at least hold the line, on workers' health care and pension plan costs.
"They didn't go on strike to win a free Mercedes-Benz," said Gene Carroll, director of Cornell University's Union Leadership Program. "They went on strike over the core stuff that we all worry about. These workers are not wealthy."
Negotiations started as most do, with threats of a strike and counterthreats of stiff fines for violating the state's Taylor Law. Workers were portrayed as ungrateful, greedy or lazy. Union leaders were described as unreasonable and reckless.
But there was an added dynamic: Unlike in previous contract talks, this time the MTA entered negotiations with a massive $1 billion surplus. So its demands for some economic concessions were treated as insults to workers - who had primed for a fight over the past decade.
The MTA, projecting unprecedented future deficits, wouldn't give in - and few really expected the workers to go on strike.
After such a draining battle, another strike isn't very likely anytime soon. But given the contentious history of the MTA and TWU, there's bound to be another one down the line.
"I certainly don't think it's the last strike by transit workers," Freeman said.
KEY PLAYERS IN THE MASS TRANSIT MELTDOWN
TRANSIT UNION PRESIDENT ROGER TOUSSAINT
Then: President of TWU Local 100.
Now: Running for re-election.
Looking back: Toussaint agrees with Kalikow that the strike was unnecessary, but blames the MTA for pushing workers' backs to the wall.
The union had insisted it would never back a plan to make new hires pay more for their pensions than existing workers because that would create a two-class system and weaken the union, Toussaint said. Yet the MTA repeatedly demanded such a provision — even though the authority had a $1 billion surplus, he said.
So, the decision to strike was made, he said.
"Looking back, I don't see any other choice . . . given the set of circumstances we faced," he said.
Toussaint predicted that transit workers would keep him in office. Voting out their strike leader would "cheapen their battle," Toussaint said.
"At the end of the day, transit workers will rise to the occasion and act honorably," he said. "They won't dishonor their own fight."
MTA CHAIRMAN PETER KALIKOW
Then: Metropolitan Transportation Authority chairman
Now: Slated to step down in 2007
Looking back: Kalikow remains incredulous that TWU President Roger Toussaint left the negotiating table and led workers out on strike Dec. 20, 2005.
"There was nothing major that they gave us, or that we gave them, that necessitated going out on strike," Kalikow told the Daily News last week. "It was clearly circumstances outside of that [negotiating] room that caused the strike."
Kalikow said those outside forces remain a mystery to him. In a statement, Kalikow added that the strike "was unnecessary as much as it was illegal" and the union "breached the trust not only of us but of all New Yorkers."
Noting the $2.5 million in fines and other penalties, Kalikow said the strikers and union "have paid the price" for breaking the law. "It is time to move on. I look forward to the arbitrator's decision and putting this whole unnecessary chapter behind us."
JUDGE THEODORE JONES
Then: State Supreme Court justice in Brooklyn assigned to all strike-related litigation, including pre-strike lawsuits aimed at preventing a walkout and motions regarding the subsequent issue of punishment.
Now: The administrative justice for the Supreme Court's civil division in Brooklyn. A candidate for the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court.
Looking back: Jones didn't have any expectations as to what might come next during those roller-coaster days before, during and after the strike.
"I just reacted to whatever happened," Jones said. "I didn't anticipate what they would do or would not do. My obligation is to enforce the law, blindly, and that was it. It wasn't anything personal."
And the law was clear to Jones. Transit workers are prohibited from striking under the state's Taylor Law. He politely declined to reveal his views of such union claims that workers were mistreated by the MTA.
"It certainly has been a very difficult chapter in the book of labor relations," he said. "I hope it resolves itself to the benefit of all sides."