Results tagged “transportworkersunion”

Where do the MTA's executive director and the TWU's president lunch? The Old Homestead! The NY Times reveals that Executive Director Elliot Sander ordered the rack of lamb while TWU President Roger Toussaint had the herb-rubbed roast chicken (what, no one ordered the Kobe Beef Hamburger?) and split the bill. If only we were a fly or a cow on the wall! We bet they discussed how much Pataki sucks, how the real time information boards will take forever to install, and how the new subway cars are pretty cool.

What a way to (almost) end 2006 - with an arbitrator making a decision about the MTA's transit workers' contract! And the decision is pretty anti-climactic - it's basically the deal that ended the strike last year, though it was later rejected by the Transit Workers Union, then passed but then denied by the MTA. Anyway, arbitrator George Nicolau said the deal was "the most just and reasonable" solution. From the AP:

Both the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its foil, Transport Workers Union Local 100, hailed the decision as a triumph -- then needled each other.

Continue reading "Arbitrator Finally Rules on Transit Contract"

Huh. Transit Workers Union president Roger Toussaint tells the Daily News that he had a "secret deal with the MTA really ended the walkout." Toussaint faces re-election to be TWU president this month and has been criticized by opponents for ending the strike before getting a contract. So we think it's pretty convenient for Toussaint to tell all now. From the Daily News:

Toussaint said he kept the original pact secret because of the highly charged atmosphere: Gov. Pataki had insisted on the second day of the strike that the MTA wouldn't negotiate while workers were still walking picket lines.

Continue reading "Roger's Secret"

Last week, amNew York reported on Transit Workers Union president Roger Toussaint's ploy to raise re-election funds by selling various wares, including autographed pictures. Toussaint, though, wanted to dispute the public perception of him in the article, which had quotes from commuters outside of Penn Station. From today's AMNY:

So the Trinidad-native challenged amNewYork to walk the streets with him on his turf -- working class, outer borough neighborhoods. The cheers from working men and women, he predicted, would far outweigh the jeers. He allowed amNewYork to pick the neighborhoods.

Continue reading "Roger Toussaint Takes to the Rails - and Real People"

) and the piece de resistance, autographed photographs of Toussaint during last December's transit strike ($2).

Well, looks who is Mr. Helpful all of a sudden: MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow is opposed to service cuts the MTA was planning to consider in its budget. The service cuts, which were reported yesterday in the NY Times, would have been extensive, piling on many minutes of waiting time for subways and buses as service. Critics - including our readers - freaked out, and especially considering plans to increase the subway and bus fare by 5%. Yesterday Kalikow said:

“What I’m doing, officially, is letting New York City Transit know that the M.T.A. board, which runs New York City Transit, does not want a fare increase or service cuts and they need to find other things to do, if necessary. Those two things are not things we’re going to be interested in....

Continue reading "Kalikow to Put Kibosh on Proposed MTA Service Cuts"

The Transit Workers Union is set to vote on its leadership this fall, and a group of members wants to oust current president Roger Toussaint. Yesterday, the Daily News reported that bus driver (and the chairman of the local's Manhattan and Bronx division) Barry Roberts, track division chairman John Samuelsen and conductor Nat Cummings are running together. Roberts said of Toussaint, "He destroyed the workers' morale." Roberts also said many workers would have wanted to negotiate with the MTA, versus striking last December. Hindsight is always 20/20, but given that the TWU still doesn't have a contract, we imagine the TWU membership might want some new blood.

The Post gets to see the MTA's new "Rail Control Center", which is where all subway trains can be monitored starting in 2010. It's somewhere, on the West Side and is likened to NASA's mission control.

Transit officials are highly secretive about the center - which would be the largest and most advanced rail-control system in the world - because it could be a terror target, sources said.

Continue reading "MTA Will Get More Control in 2010"

am New York reports that transit strike constract arbitration will start tomorrow, which is crazy. Because we're in the throes of crazy heat and stuffy subway platforms, and when the strike was on, it was cool (cold over the bridge) and we were holiday shopping. Nice for the MTA and TWU to work together so well and get this thing locked up quickly. Remember when the TWU members rejected the contract? And then the MTA wanted to settle the contract with arbitration? And then the TWU tried to get the old contract passed, but the MTA wasn't having it? And the strike itself? Ah, memories.

Pamela Tully, Forest Hills, Queens

It feels like 2005 again! TWU President Roger Toussaint and Straphangers Campaign attorney Gene Russianoff want the MTA to delay its vote on the West Side rail yards. The vote, scheduled for Wednesday, would consider the city's $500 million bid for the area Mayor Bloomberg hopes to turn into Hudson Yards. After the Jets stadium debacle last year, the rail yards were appraised at $923 million, which is why Toussaint and Russianoff are asking that the MTA hold out for a whole lot more, as the money could fund equipment and other expenses. And wanting more money for valuable land makes sense, which is probably why the MTA will accept the $500 million offer, as it seems to operate in bizarro world.

Wow. The Transport Workers Union's headquarters on West End Avenue was sold for $60 million. Back in April, it was reported that the headquarters were worth $39 million, but that there was a $60 million offer. And clearly, the TWU decided the cash out. One source tells the Post, "This amounts to yet another miscalculation on the part of the MTA and Governor Pataki. They thought they could bust this union, but we are now stronger than ever and we're ready to fight." It'll be interesting to see how the money is used, after paying the fine and getting new headquarters.

Animal New York takes issue with Matthew Long, the firefighter hospitalized for almost six months after being injured during the transit strike and finally went home with much fanfare last week. Long was injured while biking to his stationhouse and a private bus (chartered by Bear Stearns for its employees) hit him; he is now suing the Transport Workers Union as well as Bear Stearns, and the van company. Animal New York says Long should be "discussing just how dangerous the streets of NYC are when it comes to cycling" instead, noting that Long admitted he doesn't usually bike in the city. Animal New York has photographs of the road where Long was hit - a stretch of East 52nd Street riddled with potholes. Hmm, maybe Long will have a case against the City of New York and the Department of Transportation as well?

- Governor Pataki's office said, "After almost eight years as Shelly Silver's silent partner in Albany, Rip Van Spitzer today awoke from his slumber to talk about ethics in government. New York's top law enforcement official needs to look no further than across the convention hall and see his pal Speaker Silver for the most obvious source of concern. From Michael Boxley to Ryan Karben, Speaker Silver routinely conducts the affairs of the Assembly majority with the secrecy of the old Kremlin and the ethics of Tammany Hall. New Yorkers deserve better. Even old Rip Van Spitzer knows that."Rip Van Spitzer! Plagues! Awesome! What with Spitzer calling Ground Zero's slow development an "Enron-style debacle" and an "abject failure," this might be an exciting war of the words! And Spitzer's running mate is State Senator David Paterson of Harlem - son of Basil Paterson, former NY Secretary of State and the lawyer for the Transport Workers Union on the arbitration panel.

Matthew Long, the man who was seriously injured during last December's transit strike (a private bus hit him as he biked to the stationhouse), has finally been released from the hospital. He's had 15 operations in the past five months and was only given a 1% chance of surviving: A doctor said, "He should be dead. Even the nurses in the ER thought what we were doing was an act in futility.". Long now spends most of his time using a wheelchair, though he's been walking with crutches; Long used to compete in triathlons. Long is suing the Transport Workers Union as well as Bear Stearns (which chartered the private bus) and the private bus company.

"The thing here that people should be outraged about are the people that marched with Roger Toussaint across the bridge. What kind of message does that send to our kids?" That's a veiled refernce to teachers union head Randi Weingarten if we ever heard one! At any rate, Toussaint said he was treated decently in jail - no lawsuits over that.

Four days, four nights - that's all the time that Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussiant spent at the Tombs as he was released just now. And why? Good behavior, plus this interesting loophole, via the Daily News:

Inmates automatically get one-third off their sentences for good behavior, bringing his term to seven days.

Continue reading "TWU Prez Outta Jail Early!"

MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow called the Transport Workers Union December 2005 transit strike a "criminal act committed against riders" and refused to revote on the post-strike offer that the TWU rejected then accepted. He also told the MTA board that he begged Transport Workers Union head Roger Toussaint to continue negotiatingduring pre-strike negotiations last December.

"I pleaded with Roger Toussaint not to leave. I begged him. I can't remember the last time I begged somebody to do something, but I did that night. I said, 'Roger, don't leave,' and Roger got up and walked out and sent his union out on an illegal strike."

If you're going to protest going to jail after leading an illegal transit strike for three days, then you might as well with the Reverend Al Sharpton, teachers union head Randi Weingarten, and about a thousand other supporters. And according to plan, many members of various unions are starting to view Roger Toussaint as a martyr, versus the main guy who inconvenienced the city (well, it's him and MTA Chairman Peter Kalikow). Toussaint headed off for his ten day jail stand in a big way: Rally outside the Brooklyn courthouse where he was sentenced and a rousing march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Some of what Toussaint told his supporters (and the news crews):

"Jail has no terror for me compared to the shame I would have felt if we would have simply swallowed the authority's miserable prestrike offer!"

Continue reading "Toussaint Goes to Jail After Brooklyn Bridge March"

The Transport Workers Union president Roger Toussaint will kick off his ten-day jail sentence - for last December's three-day transit strike - by having a rally outside King's County Supreme Court at 4PM. Then Toussaint and his supporters - including the Reverend Al Sharpton and John J. Sweeny of the AFL-CIO - will march across the Brooklyn Bridge and head over to the Tombs, where he needs to report at 6PM. But supporters will also hold sit-ins outside the jail. Toussaint tells the NY Times that his jail sentence is stupid, "It's one thing if you threaten a jail sentence while a strike is on. t's another thing to send someone to jail three months afterward." And he tells the Daily News that he's not worried about jail, but he's worried about his family worrying about, like his 10 year old son. The Post's reporter got threatened when he observed Toussaint's "last day of freedom" while eating in Boerum Hill ("curried chicken, accompanied by rice and beans and spicy cabbage at the West Indian home-style favorite Stir It Up on Atlantic Avenue").

Interesting fact about the fines imposed on the Transport Workers Union over last December's strike. The TWU can resume collecting membership dues (about $1.5 million per month) if TWU president says the union will never strike again. The thing is that TWU president Roger Toussaint has been pretty adamant about the right to strike, and it'd be unlikely he'd go for it... even though it seems like the union might want some sort of leadership shake-up. And in the "Toussaint's going to jail!" coverage that is so excitable in the tabs, the Daily News looks at what Toussaint can expect in jail. He'll be at "The Tombs" on White Street (aka the Bernard Kerik Complex!) downtown, in a 6" by 8" cell, and breakfast include "cereal, bread and fruit."

Brooklyn Supreme Court's Justice Theodore Jones nailed the transit union with a huge $2.5 million fine yesterday, plus ordered the union to stop collecting dues, and the Transport Workers Union vowed to appeal the decision. The loss for the TWU could be over $7 million all told, since the TWU takes in $1.6 million in dues each month and the union cannot appeal the dues payment stoppage for three months. The TWU will now have to collect fines on the individual basis, and who knows how successul that will be. Naturally, the MTA appreciated the ruling, saying, "In light of the decision by the TWU leadership last December to willfully violate the Taylor Law and disrupt the lives of millions of New Yorkers, we respect the ruling of the court." The Reverend Jesse Jackson, along with the Reverend Al Sharpton, was present for the fines hearing, and complained that the ruling means unions cannot fight back. You can read TWU president Roger Toussaint's court statement, proclaiming that transit workers were engaging in civil disobedience. With the appeal, Gothamist wonders if the fine will be reduced further, as Justice Jones already knocked off half a million - it seems that since the Taylor Law is in place, the TWU has to be punished in some way, like it or not.

The hearings to determine the Transport Workers' Union fine from the three day transit strike is just full of (weird) new tidbits. The TWU has been arguing that paying a $3 million fine, plus not receiving its union members' dues automatically each paycheck, would ruin them. The MTA says that the TWU's 80 West End Avenue headquarters are worth $39 million - and TWU treasurer Ed Watt said that there was an offer on it for $60 million! The MTA's lawyer also suggested that union members pay their dues by PayPal, but TWU President and soon-to-be jailbird (lest he appeals) Roger Toussaint says that it's unlikely all of the union's members would voluntarily pay dues. Yeah, no one really likes dues. The judge is expect to rule on Monday.