Transit Labor

The Local 100 branch of the Transport Workers Union has elected John Samuelsen to take over the union presidency from Roger Toussaint, according to the Daily News. Samuelsen was running against acting president Curtis Tate on a platform of more direct opposition to the MTA. He is an outspoken critic of the MTA’s appeal of the TWU arbitration award and has spoken of more “direct action” against the agency if the two sides cannot come to an acceptable compromise. As the MTA’s finances worse, Samuelsen will become a major player over the next few months and years.

In other TWU news, Juan De Los Santos, the union member who tipped off the MTA Inspector General to the problem of idle workers, claims he was shoved off a platform and onto an active track in retaliation for his whistleblowing. The NYPD is currently investigating, but one “police source” told Pete Donohue that De Los Santos may have simply tripped. The discussion on Subchat amongst some union members is decided mixed here.

As the MTA continues to fight the TWU’s arbitration victory, the Transit Workers Union will keep on protesting the authority’s actions. Yesterday, union lawyers filed a response to the MTA’s appeal in the Manhattan Supreme Court. As Pete Donohue reports, the 67-page appeal claims that an 11 percent raise over three years is “just and reasonable,” the legal standard for the arbitration award. Meanwhile, the union will stage another Day of Outrage next Tuesday. This time, transit workers will march from Cadman Plaza across the Brooklyn Bridge to City Hall at 4 p.m. on Oct. 28. For more info, check out the Local 100 poster announcing the protest.

For the first time since assuming his duties as MTA CEO and Chairman, Jay Walder said yesterday that he would continue the MTA’s legal battle against the TWU arbitration award. Speaking with Daily News reporters yesterday, Walder said the wage reward would cost the MTA $350 million over three years at a time when the agency can least afford it. As is their legal right, the MTA’s lawyers are arguing that the arbitration panel made “factual and legal errors” in awarding TWU workers 11 percent raises over the next three years. Although Walder has offered to meet with current TWU head Curtis Tate, the interim president has so far declined the meeting, and Walder won’t stop the arbitration appeal. “The MTA started the process before I arrived,” he said. “That process is continuing, and I support the process. I think we should go ahead.”

For the TWU protesting the MTA’s legally permissible move to appeal a binding arbitration decision, yesterday was officially a “Day of Outrage.” The TWU hosted two protests at depots around the city, and unofficially, a text message circulated urging a slowdown. Union members were supposed to be meticulous in adhering to rules, and supposedly, this new-found awareness for regulations would lead to slower service along the city’s bus and subway routes. As The Times reports, though, this Day of Outrage went by unnoticed.

For a union trying to make waves, the problem is one of expectancy and variation. It’s too hard to tell when our commutes are slower than they should be because slowdowns happen all the time. Someone pulls the emergency break; there’s a stalled train or a smoke condition; trains creep along tracks because of construction. Yesterday, in fact, my Brooklyn-bound F train sat at Carroll St. at 1 p.m. for about 10 minutes with no audible announcement. It could have been due to the Day of Outrage, but it was probably due to the workers digging up the express tracks on the Culver Viaduct. We just don’t know.

If the TWU wants to make a wave and gain public attention, they’ll have to do more than attempt to slow down a notoriously unpredictable mass transit system. They were outraged yesterday, but no one noticed.

The Post today reports that the MTA has already spent $1.2 million in legal fees to fight the binding arbitration decision that guaranteed TWU workers 11 percent raises over three years. Of course, everyone is outraged — OUTRAGED! Curtis Tate, acting TWU boss, called it “this ridiculous waste of public resources.” Gene Russianoff, slightly less hyperbolic, questioned the outside expenditures: “They spent a lot of dough, and I wonder why they can’t do more of that in-house.”

Of course, anyone with a little knowledge of the legal world would have an understanding of the situation. The MTA stands to lose hundreds of millions of dollars a year if the arbitration is upheld. Furthermore, outside law firms have the expertise and manpower to adequately combat a so-called binding arbitration decision. While the MTA’s in-house counsel can provide support, the lawyers at Littler Mendelson are much better suited for the task. The $1.2 million for a corporation the size of the MTA is but a drop in the legal bucket, and although the story makes for populist outrage, it’s a non-starter.

While Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson is facing long odds and a distinct financial disadvantage in his efforts to unseat Michael Bloomberg, Thompson is earning himself some powerful union friends. Today, Michael Grynbaum explores how the TWU Local 100 arm has become a de facto powerhouse for Thompson. Because Bloomberg has developed an antagonistic toward the TWU and because he continues to oppose the mandated 11 percent raises the transit workers won in binding arbitration earlier this year, the TWU has taken to the streets to oppose Bloomberg’s push for a third term. I wonder, though, if the TWU’s actions on behalf of Thompson are simply coming about because they oppose Bloomberg, and I fear for the future the state of transit labor relations if Bloomberg succeeds in beating Thompson. Currently enjoying a 16-point lead, Bloomberg won’t take kindly to the TWU’s outspoken opposition.

As the MTA continues its push to appeal the binding arbitration decision that guarantees TWU Local 100 workers an 11 percent raise spread over three years, TWU organizers are fighting back. After a picket really last week in front of MTA Headquarters, the labor union is planning two more days of protests. The union members will rally from 4:30 p.m to 7 p.m. today in front of MTA HQ at 44th St. and Madison Ave. More ominous though is the transit-wide protest set for Oct. 14. It is being billed on the TWU’s website as the first day of outrage, and the TWU promises to give the MTA (and perhaps its riders) “a taste of hell.” I do believe a labor battle is brewing, and the city’s transit systems will serve as Ground Zero for the fight. [Daily News]