[Marxism] Analysis of TWU dispute

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

NY Times, January 22, 2006
News Analysis
In Transit Dispute, Navigating Without a Map
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and SEWELL CHAN

Typically, when a union's members reject a contract, negotiators from
management and labor reconvene and seek to reach a revised deal - often
with a few tweaks - that is more palatable to the union's rank and file yet
does not cost management an extra cent.

But New York City's continuing transit dispute, which involved the first
systemwide strike in a quarter-century, has not followed tried-and-true
patterns.

As a result, bus and subway riders find themselves in uncharted and
uncomfortable territory: never before have the city's transit workers first
gone on strike and then voted down their contract.

With the announcement on Friday of the results of the union's ratification
vote, the union's stunned leaders and the equally stunned Metropolitan
Transportation Authority are not sure where to go from here, not sure how
to put the contract back together again. Although nobody is predicting
another strike, there is a nagging concern that things could once again
fall badly apart.

"All this means that transit riders are going to have to take some Tums,"
said Joshua B. Freeman, a labor historian at the City University of New
York Graduate Center. "There's going to be a lot of uncertainty until this
thing is finally resolved."

So much anger, ill feeling, dissent and political jockeying remain within
Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union that some unpredictable and
undesirable things might happen if the union's members or its dissident
leaders flex their muscles.

David L. Gregory, a labor law professor at St. John's University,
speculated on one possibility: "The militant members of the union will
continue to work, but they may be prone to a wildcat job action or
slowdown, which could be almost as chaotic as a systemwide shutdown."
Judges might view such actions as illegal work stoppages and impose further
penalties.

If nothing else, however, the workers' rejection of the settlement shows
that they are an angry group - angry enough to take part in an illegal
three-day strike and face fines, and angry enough to embarrass their
union's president, Roger Toussaint, by shooting down a settlement he had
signed.

But they also are angry at the transportation authority, for demanding
concessions when it had a $1 billion surplus, and they are angry at Gov.
George E. Pataki, for warning that he might block a contract provision that
many workers loved. That provision, valued at $130 million, would give
about 20,000 transit workers thousands of dollars of refunds on their
pension contributions.

Mr. Toussaint blamed others for the outcome, saying, "We believe this
result is a byproduct of a number of negative and inappropriate
interferences." But some union members and labor experts say the contract
lost because he was slow to campaign for it, although his aides say he was
hamstrung by an agreement with the transportation authority not to gloat
over the deal, which called for raises totaling 10.5 percent over 37 months.

The last time the transit workers rejected their contract, in 1992, the
negotiators made a few tweaks in the settlement, giving the workers a
little more retroactive pay, but keeping the same overall raises. The
workers overwhelmingly approved the revised deal.

This time, however, Mr. Toussaint is no doubt feeling pressure to ask for
more than a few tweaks. Indeed, he may demand one huge change: that the
authority drop the provision that most angered union members and probably
caused them to repudiate the contract, if only by 7 votes of the 22,461
cast. That provision called for transit workers to pay part of their health
insurance premiums, for the first time.

Under the rejected deal, workers were to pay 1.5 percent of their wages
toward health premiums, with that percentage rising in future years. "They
didn't go on strike so they could start paying health insurance premiums,"
said John F. Mooney, a union vice president and Toussaint foe, who helped
lead the campaign to vote no. "They're not willing to pay a percentage of
their salaries toward health care that will go up."

While Mr. Toussaint might ask to jettison the provision on health premiums,
nobody expects the transportation authority to oblige him, because dropping
it would cost the authority more than $30 million a year. The authority has
hailed the provision, saying it would help rein in spiraling benefit costs.

"In this type of situation, the parties normally try to figure out if there
is a way to reach a solution that both sides could live with within the
same cost structure," said Robert W. Linn, a former New York City director
of labor relations. "Assuming that the health premiums were a major reason
for rejection, that would certainly be a difficult issue to deal with,
since it's so important to the management and the city." After the transit
settlement was reached, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg suggested that he would
like future city contracts to require municipal workers, too, to begin
paying part of their health premiums.

The next steps in the dispute could become more volatile. Union members
could turn even angrier if Mr. Pataki insists that the authority drop the
pension refund, which he has repeatedly condemned, saying it wrongly
rewarded participants in an illegal strike. The governor controls 6 of the
14 votes on the authority's board.

"This really gives the rhetorical opportunity to the governor to resume his
shots at the union, and that could be very inflammatory," Professor Gregory
said.

If new face-to-face negotiations go nowhere, mediators might be called in
to lend a hand, but if mediation also were to fail, the alternative is
binding arbitration. The transportation authority has already requested
such arbitration, but if Mr. Toussaint and dissident leaders agree on
anything, it is that they oppose arbitration because it would deny transit
workers a vote on the ultimate deal.

Nonetheless, many labor experts say binding arbitration might be the best
course for both sides, because both are being asked to undertake perhaps
impossible horse-trading to revamp the deal in ways that will make it
acceptable.

"Arbitration can make more sense because arbitrators have a lot of
experience putting together a deal within a given cost structure," Mr. Linn
said. "An arbitrator is not likely to decide on a settlement that costs
more or costs less."

Strange as it may sound, not just the authority, but perhaps Mr. Toussaint
as well, may have little desire to negotiate an agreement that is far more
generous to the workers. The authority certainly does not want a
renegotiated settlement to cost more than the rejected one, while Mr.
Toussaint might not want a more generous settlement because it might make
him look weak - as if he had negotiated too stingy a deal the first time
around.

"It is hard to imagine how a bigger victory can be won at the negotiating
table," said Robert W. Snyder, an associate professor of journalism at
Rutgers University and the author of an oral history of the transit
workers. "It is even harder to imagine them winning if they go on another
strike."


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