ROGER TOUSSAINT: "We are not thugs"

According to Roger, the MTA made an illegal demand in the negotiations ". . .it is clearly and plainly illegal for any side to impose a pension demand as a condition for contract settlement."

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1521245

ROGER TOUSSAINT: To all New Yorkers, I would like to apologize for the inconvenience and beg all riders and all working people for their patience and forbearance for the inconvenience caused by our strike, a strike that we maintain that we were provoked into conducting. I just came from a meeting with state mediators, and I will be leaving from here to resume discussions with state mediators sent in from Albany to attempt to assist both parties to get out of the current stalemate in the negotiations.

Let me be very clear that we believe that the pension demands put forth by the MTA are illegal. To impose this on the negotiations is illegal and burdens the negotiations and should come off the table. We believe that if the pension demands that are illegal and a burden to the negotiations come off the table, that that would go a long way to us resuming the negotiations and resolving the strike issue. The main hold-up has been and is the pension issues. Let me explain that while you may discuss pensions in the course of negotiations, contract negotiations, it is clearly and plainly illegal for any side to impose a pension demand as a condition for contract settlement. That is what the MTA did. On Thursday night they submitted a final offer that included a new -- the creation of a new pension tier. That is illegal to submit as a final demand or final offer.

I want to also address some of the remarks that have been made characterizing our members and our leadership in the course of these negotiations by the governor and the mayor. There's been some offensive and insulting language used, such as referring to our union members and our leadership as thugs, selfish, and essentially characterizing us as being overpaid and greedy. And this is regrettable, and it is certainly unbecoming for the mayor of the City of New York to be using this type of language to the people that in New York City entrust the care of over seven million riders every single day. And maybe it is very difficult for a billionaire to understand what someone who is making a few tens of thousands of dollars are going through in meeting those bills and paying to put children through school, maybe there's that type of disconnect. But we believe that working people in New York can more better identify with transit workers and know instinctively that the thugs are not on this side of the podium. We are not thugs, we are not selfish, we are not greedy. We are hard working New Yorkers, dignified men and women, who have put in decades of service to keep the city moving 24/7. We wake up 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning to move trains and buses in this town, and we will continue to do that, and that’s not the behavior of thugs and selfish people. Thank you.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1521245

. . .And, in fact, Peter Kalikow, the chairman of the MTA, agreed to go to a mediation process, and as Toussaint mentioned in that clip you played, he and the MTA were both initially in separate rooms doing negotiations through a mediator, and then late last night, about 1:00 in the morning, they actually began some face-to-face negotiations that have continued through the night, so that Toussaint made it clear that if the illegal demand of the MTA to force a new pension tier was taken off the table that there was a possibility of settling the strike within a few hours. And he has been backed in that by numerous lawmakers, by the entire labor movement in New York City, and the Taylor Law is pretty clear.

Yes, the Taylor Law does forbid public employees from striking, but it also forbids an employer, any government agency, from attempting to force pension changes onto a union contract. Pension changes are made by the state legislature only, not through the collective bargaining process. Although unions often do agree to go with an employer to petition for pension changes, they are not legally part of any collective bargaining process. And that’s what Toussaint kept saying when he said that the proposed -- the demands of the MTA were illegal demands

>Yes, the Taylor Law does forbid public employees from striking, but it also forbids an employer, any government agency, from >attempting to force pension changes onto a union contract.

I read the act yesterday and couldn't find anything to support this.

http://www.perb.state.ny.us/stat.asp

The act specifies a method to obtain relief if the government engages in unfair practices - striking is prohibited no matter what.

I guess some laws were meant to be broken.

Nah, lets just seize the individual worker's bank accounts, and assess them a fine of 25,000 per day each.

that's fair. :sarcasm:

The strike may be over, but negotiations continue. I'm watching MTA employees on the local news right now complain that they went out for nothing.

The union had a legitimate grievance but allowed themselves to be manipulated.

and lose?

But they do talk about the possibility that Pataki may using this as a way to catapult him to the Presidential nomination:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/22/1521245

"I think that there is still a possibility of a settlement in this very soon. The only possibility for preventing this kind of settlement is if someone like Governor Pataki, who as we all know wants to run for president, if he decides that he is going to make a name for himself by crushing the Transit Workers Union, similar to what Calvin Coolidge did in 1919 when he was governor of Massachusetts and broke the Boston Policemen strike and then was catapulted into national fame and then became a vice presidential candidate."

He may attempt to do this, but if he does, it will only accelerate his political burial.

This is bigger than just the NYC Transit workers. This is part of the nationwide attack on pensions. The Democracy Now! show has the details.

Is he one of the people making a few tens of thousand dollars a year waking up at 3:00 and 4:00 who is really one of the workers or is he one of the millionaires like a head of a corporate organization that in this case is a union. I really don't know how well these leaders are paid - is it like being head of a corporation?

Maybe Bloomberg can't fathom what its like to need to fight for something for survival?

I imagine he makes over 100,000, but really that's irrelevant. His job is to speak for the workers who make what they make.

Yeah let's attack Toussaint for his salary. :eyes: While conveniently ignoring Bloomberg and what he represents.

they still made the last-minute demand of cutting the pension for new workers. It's like they didn't want a settlement.

who care more about themselves than anyone they claim to represent. Many people claim to represent me but most don't really give a damn about me - its their own well being and ego they care about.

But you are free to make it, its just not a very convincing argument, IMO.

Everyones corrupt so lets just sit back and let the workers be run over? Gee I wonder who would benefit from that.

The Argument Between the Local TWU and the National TWU
By Tom Robbins | December 20, 2005

Toussaint won election by campaigning against the old guard which was personified by former TWU Local 100 president Sonny Hall who had gone on to head the national union. Toussaint decisively beat a Hall-backed candidate, claiming that the union had squandered both its finances and its clout by playing footsy with transit managers. Once in office, he sliced his own salary by $15,000. His slate of dissidents made similar cuts in their pay. He eliminated an extra pension that local officers had awarded themselves, and also dropped an expensive health plan for officers, putting them on the same plan as members.

One year after his election to the leadership of Local 100, the largest unit in the 120,000-member union, Toussaint challenged Hall for the presidency of the national body. He was roundly defeated. But the election opened a window on the kind of bitter divisions that were wracking the union. Occurring at a union convention just a month after the 9-11 attacks, the campaign against Toussaint's candidacy included distribution of flyers that called Toussaint an ally of Osama Bin Laden.

In 2002, during the last round of contentious talks between the local and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Toussaint and his allies were haunted by the possibility that should they strike, they faced not just the legal sanctions by the state and the city, but the likelihood that Hall would place the local under trusteeship, firing the elected leaders.

In the midst of those talks, those suspicions were fueled by on-air comments by Hall's friend ex-Senator Al D'Amato that Hall would be there "to save the day" in the event of a strike.

There was no strike in 2002, but the threat of a potential takeover by the national union has continued to haunt the local, and has made Toussaint's tightrope walk even more precarious.

The division reflects more than just styles of leadership. The election of Toussaint, a native of Trinidad, represented the culmination of years of racial change among transit workers who were once largely Irish-American. Younger minority workers charged that the old ethnic leadership were more interested in preserving perks for older members than protecting them from the MTA's often draconian disciplinary system.

After his election, Toussaint further outraged Hall and his allies by challenging past local fiscal decisions, including a decision by the union to sell its old headquarters on Broadway for $13.5 million. Six weeks later, the site was resold for $29 million. Records dug up by the union indicated that the local's former attorney had collected a brokerage fee for the building's resale. Toussaint challenged the deal in court, though Hall said he knew nothing about the deal and that it should be investigated.

O'Brien, who earns $216,000 as president of the national union (Toussaint's current wage is $102,000), openly told executive board members last night that he believed that progress was being made at the talks and the union should take the reformulated MTA offer which called for 6 percent annual pension contributions for new employees. Toussaint countered that the offer was a poison pill, one that would burden new members with inferior benefits and which would quickly become a cudgel used against other municipal workers.

At the court hearing in Brooklyn, as soon as the judge dismissed the national union from the lawsuit, its lawyers quickly packed their leather legal satchels and bustled out onto Court Street.

Sonny Hall was a featherbedding patsy for management. He cared more for his pocket than the workers.

The threat of a move by the international union is real, but unlikely for the simple reason that their loyalty is to their current leadership. Hall was bullied by Giuliani and lost his job behind that. They can read a poll like anyone else, and the union still has the city's support.

So when Pataki and Bloomberg herald the International's stand, hoping you don't realize that they have sold out Local 100 in the past and look to do it again.


from http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com

Just thought I'd pull that out and :kick: the thread at the same time.

People who try and compare a six figure salary to Bloomberg should go back to math class, and stop trolling.

How many figures in a billion? here's a clue, it's more than 6.

See the second section of today's show for a detailed analysis:

http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl

The guest concludes that the best solution for pensions is a universal system (like they have in Europe) that takes the burden off of individual companies and unions for working this out.

:kick: This was an excellent show. I recommend you all catch it on Link-TV or at the above link!

Democracy now shows @ 3pm on Link-TV