------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Dec. 26, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
TWU struggle ARE WORKERS WHO STRIKE 'CRIMINALS'? By Milt Neidenberg New York On Dec. 16 a tentative settlement was reached between the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Tranport Workers Union Local 100. Local 100's 47- member Executive Committee ratified the agreement with 75 percent approving. There will be much discussion on the merits of the settlement among the 34,000 members before a vote is taken. It's a three-year contract with a one-time thousand-dollar bonus for the first year, followed by a 3-percent annual increase based on productivity increases for the next two years. Health care and pension benefits will be better protected. An overhaul of the harsh disciplinary practices and provisions that the MTA contribute to a new child-care fund round out the highlights of the tentative agreement. TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint, who signed the tentative agreement, characterized it as modest. He is right, since it was achieved under the most difficult conditions. What must be thoroughly discussed is how this tentative agreement was reached. It can only be described this way: At the bargaining table, MTA President Peter Kalikow pointed a loaded gun directly at the head of Local 100 President Roger Toussaint. The gun had been handed to Kalikow by a shadowy figure in black robes who never attended a single bargaining session. This figure is Jules L. Spodek, a State Supreme Court judge in Brooklyn, NY. About 48 hours before the contract expired, Spodek issued an injunction against Local 100, whose membership had democratically voted to withhold their labor if necessary to get a decent contract. The workers made this thoughtful decision to defend their union against a powerful array of bankers, investors and political conspirators who were determined to protect their financial interests at the workers' expense. VIOLATES THE CONSTITUTION The gun Spodek handed the MTA is the Taylor Law. Passed in 1967 under Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, the Taylor Law criminalizes public-sector unions each time they seek to withhold their labor to win a decent wage and benefit contract. The law includes huge penalties, like limitless fines for unions. Under the Taylor Law, workers are fined two days' pay for each day they are on strike. The law provides for additional penalties, such as prison terms for members who "instigate, encourage or condone" a strike. This is clearly a violation of free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution's First and 13th Amendments. The latter eliminated involuntary servitude and slave labor after the Civil War. So what, says one person--a judge--who has the backing of the ruling class and its repressive institutions. According to the rulers, the workers are criminals if they decide to strike for a decent contract. Remember, these transit workers labor around the clock through bitter cold and stifling heat, working in the most dangerous, dirty and stressful conditions, providing safe, efficient service to over 7 million bus and subway riders daily. Recently two union members were killed within 48 hours. Four have died in the last six months. It's all due to speedup, unsafe conditions, and cuts in work crews. The president of the 34,000 "criminals" of Transit Workers Local 100 is Roger Toussaint, a Trinidadian by birth. Two-thirds of the union's members are workers of color, with a heavy representation of African- Americans and of Caribbean immigrants. At the union hall, TWU women and men have said that racism is a dynamic in the contract dispute. Toussaint began work as a track cleaner and maintenance worker. He rose to become president of the union. He chaired the union's Track Maintenance Unit starting in 1995. In 1998 the MTA fired him because of his militant leadership. He was reinstated in 2001, following his election as president. Across the bargaining table from Toussaint and the other TWU leaders was the MTA's Peter S. Kalikow, packing the Taylor law. Kalikow's personal fortune includes assets of over $400 million. (Forbes, May 2002) His family holdings, which exceed his own, came from wheeling and dealing in Wall Street real-state development. Kalikow has broad and intimate connections with the banking establishment, which has a substantial stake in getting loans paid off. Both the union and the city comptroller are calling for the MTA to open its books. There is a growing suspicion that MTA management is covering up surpluses to justify demands for both concessions from the union and a fare hike. Rockefeller was New York governor when the MTA was created in 1967 by combining the Long Island Railroad, Metro North, the Triboro Bridge and Tunnel Authority, and the New York City Transit Authority. It is a transportation monopoly born out of a Rockefeller/J.P. Morgan plan to control the flow of huge amounts of borrowed money. The MTA, a politically appointed board, has the legal standing to sell bonds, which incur debt, without oversight from the public and the unions. The MTA is behind every fare hike, causing hardship to workers and the poor whose only transportation is subways and buses. The fares that mass- transit riders pay make up 54 percent of operating funds, contributing more to keeping the system going than fares in any other major U.S. city. With the Taylor law at its disposal, the MTA had been stonewalling the union and taken it to the brink--the Dec. 15 contract expiration date. Since last spring the union had been asking that bargaining begin. At the time, the MTA offered zero pay raises for the first year of the new contract and possible wage increases in the second and third year, contingent on productivity increases. The MTA demanded that workers pay a $22 monthly increase for health insurance and a 2 to 3 percent increase in out-of-pocket pension fund payments. Retirees would lose their prescription benefits. In contrast, the union demanded a 6-percent annual increase for each of three years, no out-of-pocket health-care or pension costs, better working conditions, and changes in the discipline procedures. Currently there are over 16,000 disciplinary actions on the books. These earlier proposals can be compared with the tentative agreement. Gov. George Pataki's early threat to call in the National Guard and his statement that a strike would be "a horrendous act of disloyalty to the people of New York" had added fuel to the fire. Mayor Michael Bloomberg had even sought penalties harsher than those under the Taylor Law. He asked for $1 million in fines against the union on the first day of the strike, doubling each day, and $25,000 from each worker, doubling each day. Would these attacks and the intransigent position the MTA took at the negotiating table provoke a strike? The MTA-Pataki-Bloomberg partnership has heaved a sigh of relief now that the Toussaint leadership signed on to the tentative settlement. They were afraid that their racist, hard-line approach would backfire. They had publicly criminalized the TWU members for their reasonable efforts to get a decent contract and leveled wild charges that the rank and file were "urban terrorists" simply because they voted to give the Toussaint leadership a strike authorization as a last resort. As the final hours of the Dec. 15 expiration date approached, the anti- union rhetoric cooled down considerably. A deal was in the making. TARGET THE TAYLOR LAW New York City's million-fold labor movement and the subway- and bus- riding public should be outraged at the MTA and the shameless and arrogant display by the billionaire parasites. The tentative agreement should be viewed as a phase in labor's overall struggle to get economic and social justice. The Taylor Law is still on the books. Without an organized, sustained and militant campaign to overturn this slave-labor law, the same loaded gun will be held on the next set of public-sector unions that seek a decent contract for their members. Whatever the final vote of Local 100 members, the slave-labor Taylor Law must become the issue of the day. It is not enough to lobby for change. It must be overturned. Only a mass campaign that enlists tens of thousands in the street can bring this about. Public- sector workers must be freed from the punishing restraints denying them their legal and constitutional right to withhold their labor. The splendid turnout of thousands of workers and allies on the eve of the tentative settlement could be the spark for the demise of the infamous Taylor law. n - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe wwnews- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
