He came to office as president of Transport Workers Union Local 100 in 2000 pledging to engage his members and once again make them a force to be reckoned with. At the midway point of his third term in office, however, his presidency is teetering between crashing disappointment and Chaplinesque farce.
RICHARD STEIER, The Chief 1
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What are the goals and methods of the leadership of a ânormalâ American union, and its leadership, in the neoliberal era? It attempts to represent its members effectively and solve their problems, but it does not plan, or aspire, to change the web of rules which limit its ability to do just that. It services members rather than helps them organize; and most of the rank-and-file are passive onlookers to union-management tussles. Its officers and staff are largely disconnected from, and often unresponsive to, dissatisfied, angry, or militant workers. They coopt them, or undermine them. At contract expiration, they try to bargain vigorously but do not build the power necessary to win important demands; perhaps they make concessions to achieve âunionâ goals. Afterwards, they shrug and dissemble a bit and explain that circumstances were not favorable. They accept management control of the workplace.
The first five years of New Directionsâ, and then Toussaintâs, leadership of Local 100 offer an interesting and complicated balance sheet of attempts to be more than a ânormalâ union. It took steps to increase union power through member mobilization and worker protections through challenges to management autocracy. Less often, the leadership enhanced involvement in policy debate and decision-making, or developed and supported cadres of shop-floor
During the final four years of the Toussaint administration â including one in which he remained the Localâs dominant figure while running the union from afar â grand ambitions were shelved. Like any ânormalâ union, Local 100 processed disciplinary grievances, lobbied in Albany, intervened with management in cases of egregious abuse, and attempted to enforce existing contractual protections.2 With just one exception though â a joint safety program with a new management team â the schemes coming out of the presidentâs office, such a driver of union policies over the previous years, and often forward-looking, lacked their previous shrewdness and especially judgment. They were also sweepingly anti-democratic. Brandishing union disciplinary tools, Toussaint consolidated his unilateral control, stripped many officers of their elected posts and ruled others ineligible to run for office. Another contract was settled in binding arbitration without any member vote or involvement whatsoever in its crafting. Two unwise decisions squandered almost a yearâs worth of dues revenue. After one of those unnecessarily prolonged the unionâs loss of automatic dues check-off, member dissatisfaction and apathy meant that more than half of all union members were in bad standing by the end of 2008. That left them ineligible to vote in the following yearâs election, which was dominated by Toussaintâs charge that a former protégé, now running for president, was a racist.
Increasingly, Toussaint was a general without troops to muster. The union was neither a town meeting or an effective army. Self-inflicted wounds were manifest, and the union hall became âincreasingly hollowed out.â3 Exhaustion and apathy among union officers and the membership was pronounced. How Local 100 had fallen from its most recent apex of power!
Know Your Union? The right-hand side of this Local 100 Express, February 2009 spread identifies appointed staff (only eight were transit workers) rather than elected officers. On the left, note that Local 100 has two presidents. Four of the eight VPâs had been appointed by the Executive Board, not elected. The opposition slate protested, unsuccessfully, that this feature, published four months before the election, constituted illegal use of union resources for campaign purposes.
ILLUSTRATION REPRODUCTION COURTESY OF TAMIMENT LIBRARY/ROBERT F. WAGNER LABOR ARCHIVES, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY
1
The 2006 election results allowed Toussaint to further consolidate his control over the Local, but the actions he took further squandered the respect and moral authority normally attached to the Localâs president. Toussaint faced off against four opponents. That reflected the lack of a coherent theory of opposition (except anti-Toussaint), but also an easing of the election qualification rules meant to encourage many candidates, who might split the anti-Toussaint vote among them.4 That is what happened, although it is probable that Toussaint, with almost 45 percent of votes cast (down from 59 percent in 2003), would have won had he run against only the strongest of the four other candidates, OA VP Barry Roberts, who tallied just over 35 percent.
It might have been expected that the election would be a referendum on the strike, and the contract Toussaint had negotiated â good enough under the circumstances, too quick to return, or too quick to strike? A subsequent analysis from Toussaintâs team did find that support for Toussaint was highest in divisions which had voted for the contract in the initial tally.5 But workers dissatisfied with the strikeâs outcome were an odd fit with Robertsâ Rail and Bus United slate, which combined candidates like Roberts, who had opposed the strike but supported ratification, with others like Secretary-Treasurer John Samuelsen, who had urged rejection of the contract, and Car Equipment VP candidate Richie Rivera, who had enthusiastically supported the strike, and only broke with Toussaint on its settlement. While Toussaintâs One Union (OU) upheld the strike and the results, RBU was necessarily silent on both. Its lead slogan was âStop the Infightingâ; nine of the points in its Ten Point Program were about internal reorganization and union democracy, with only passing references to âdefend membersâ and ârebuild a solid, united front against management.â Roberts was not a strong or charismatic candidate; he actually ducked a presidential debate expected to be broadcast live on the NY1 cable channel and attended by the other four nominees.6
The 2003 pattern of taking out resentments against Toussaint down-ticket replicated itself, but more so. Toussaintâs One Union did worse than his 2003
So, the endemic 2003â06 fights between Toussaint and the VPs were averted, but soon enough Toussaint went to war with division committees. In letters to Transit Authority Labor Relations, Toussaint listed elected officers who were ânot to be considered ⦠union representative[s] in any form or fashionâ â violating the union By-law that these officers administered their divisions, another return to the 1990s. Others were barred from office for alleged failure to pay dues; some were prohibited from running for union office in 2009, even if they had returned to good standing.9 In sections of MoW which had supported the Roberts slate, Toussaint used the pretext that leaflets calling on members to pay their dues had also insisted the union needed to use those dues responsibly. Toussaint called that âputting a condition on paying dues,â took away officersâ union release time, and voided shop steward elections. He replaced them with the candidates they had defeated, and others who had not even run for office, but were long-time Toussaint cronies. In the Private Lines divisions, he blocked Chairs from participating in contract negotiations, and sent one back
2 Amending the Taylor Law, and Other Political Efforts
Earlier, Local 100 had shown some political heft; now, that seemed spent. In 2003, the union had been at the forefront of a challenge to a transit fare increase, actually halting it for a few months, but when the fare was threatened in late 2007 the union was silent. This was, The Chief suspected, in order to avoid harming an improving relationship with MTA management.11 It dutifully brought workers to Albany for its annual âLobby Day,â but except for bills stiffening penalties for assaults on transit workers, it was largely unsuccessful. Pension improvements were simply dead in the water â as Toussaint surely knew â but emblematic of Local 100âs frustrations were the fates of its two main legislative efforts: to improve track safety and amend the Taylor Law.
Beginning in 2001, the union had proposed a bill mandating that the MTA follow federal railroad safety regulations, and suffer the legal consequences â for the agency and individual supervisors â if it did not. In 2004, that bill passed both houses of the legislature but died under Governor Patakiâs veto pen. Three years later, smarting from the deaths of two more transit workers on the tracks, and with Elliot Spitzer, a Democrat, in the Governorâs mansion, the union hoped for better. But now the bill stalled. The Chief speculated that was Spitzerâs doing. In its place came a Joint NYCT/TWU Track Safety Task Force.12
Toussaint saw the panel as a necessary compromise enabling proactive measures to fix problems the union identified, recommend operational changes, and end the âget it and goâ culture that afflicted workers as well as management.
The union also made an effort to amend the Taylor Law to provide a statutory remedy for âemployer misconduct.â14 What had seemed particularly unfair about Local 100âs 2005 contract negotiation was that the MTAâs final offer violated the no-pension-change provision of the statute; yet the union was told that the only way it could contest that was by agreeing to binding arbitration, eliminating the right of the Executive Board, and then members, to vote on their contract. The MTA actually benefited from its violation of the law.
In 2006, Local 100 proposed legislation allowing PERB to issue an injunction against an employer which insisted on âa bargaining demand which is a non-mandatory subject of bargaining,â and might lead to a strike. If PERB later assessed acts of âextreme provocationâ by the employer, it could be ordered to pay up to half of all lost revenue from the loss of dues check-off.15 Eager to score political points (and presumably to garner TWU donations), Assembly Majority Leader Sheldon Silver pledged his support; so did State Senate Minority leader David Paterson, who declared the Taylor Law âunconstitutional.â Like the track safety bill, both houses of the legislature passed the bill, knowing that Governor Pataki would veto it. And like the track safety bill, when the union made a renewed push three years later, after Paterson had become governor, the bill stalled in the legislature.16
3
More substantive results came during a relatively brief interregnum of a better relationship with management, at a time when TWUâs ability to win demands by flexing its muscles was low: cooperation replaced class struggle. Spitzer, who took office in January 2007, had earlier been critical of the MTA, holistically as an agency, and specifically decrying its miserable labor relations record. He quickly appointed a new MTA Executive Director and TA president.17 Summing up changes during his two-year tenure, the MTAâs Elliot Sander explained that âmanagement had a pretty patronizing, anachronistic relationship with its employees, and in many ways we were able to turn that operation around. It was dealing with people with respect.â A union affidavit affirmed that âthe new administration of NYCT/MaBSTOA, as well as the new administration of its parent, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, has embarked on a genuine effort to improve its labor relations with the Union. The Union welcomes these measures and is reciprocating.â18
Three specific outcomes resulted from this brief âera of good feelingsâ: an apparent decrease in disciplinary write-ups, new protocols on safety, and an initially less contentious 2008 contract negotiation. While there is no hard data available on the decline of discipline, one union staffer estimated it at 25â35 percent.19 Sander had indicated a desire to address the â10 to 20 percent of managers ⦠who are not sensitive to situations and resort to discipline,â while Transit president Howard Roberts, âwanted to change the culture at NYC Transit, which he believed was too disciplinarian.â After a year on the job, new Labor Relations head Judith Pierce announced, âa distinct decrease in disciplinary actions,â and added, âweâre looking to further reduce those numbers.â20 The precise numbers, however, are unknown, and it is also unclear what types
The most frustrating, or puzzling, piece of the story, though, is that Local 100 never found its own successful strategy to lower discipline. The 2002 contractual changes had some mitigating effect on a few of the most notorious forms of management abuse, but little overall effect. Ultimately, the decline in discipline was driven by a change in management policy â a factor largely outside workersâ control â that was reversed when Sander and Roberts stepped down in 2009.21
A similar story of temporary improvement was a greater emphasis on safety. The Joint Safety Task Force that Albany had established at first produced some successes, before falling victim â like the disciplinary improvements â to a change in management. Its final report resulted in safer flagging protocols, and mandated union sign-offs before work began; it clarified and re-emphasized some existing rules it found were often disregarded; and it focused on unsafe habits and culture that produced âresistance to safety changes from many in management and even from Union members who prefer the easy way out.â To emphasize safety protocols, Toussaint and Roberts jointly participated in a week-long safety stand-down for both lower-level supervision and transit workers â a significant symbolic act. Safety training became, for a time, a joint Transit-Local 100 responsibility.22
Beyond the report itself, Robin Gillespie, the unionâs technical safety expert, described a heightened ability to get Transit to take union concerns seriously â on items like chemicals, asbestos, and ergonomic and noise issues, and proposed operational rule changes, often despite production supervision kick-back. Monthly safety walks were expanded to new locations like platforms and tracks. Toussaint praised âa substantive change in the approach to safety ⦠real progress ⦠that just a few years earlier might have been regarded as unattainable.â Gillespie commended Roberts as âwilling to negotiate and establish a peer relationship with the union.â23
4 Bad Decisions: the Union Bleeds Money, and Members
In 2006, Local 100 sold its union headquarters. To avoid capital gains taxes, the union needed to invest those funds either in a new home or an investment vehicle owning comparable properties, from which it would have cashed out when it found an appropriate headquarters. Apparently receiving bad financial advice, it failed to comply with IRS regulations and was socked with a big tax bill. Inferring likely direct taxes averaging $810,00 in 2007â09 (the average of taxes in 2006 and 2010), the union paid approximately $8 million in unnecessary costs to clear its tax debt, as shown in Figure 23.26
Direct Taxes, by year, shows disproportionate payments in 2007â09, as the Local paid taxes on unprotected capital gains
That additional year of collecting dues by hand came after Mayor Bloomberg intervened in the hearing to restore the check-off. Bloomberg demanded that union leaders must âonce and for all time declare unequivocally that they may not, and will not, ever again engage in a strike.â The judge agreed, adopting the Cityâs phrase, ordering that âToussaint and every other member of the Localâs Executive Board must submit affidavits âwhich state in unequivocal terms that Local 100 lacks the right to strike.ââ28 However outrageous the courtâs ruling was, if circumstances arose that seemed to make a strike imperative, it certainly would not matter that the union had made this pledge.
Dues Receipts and Net Assets, by year, shows the effect of the loss of dues check-off for part of 2007 and almost all of 2008
5 By-Laws Changes
Any typical transit worker must have surely had their head spin as they pored through the unionâs eight-page 2008 mailing elaborating 16 proposed By-law changes. The whole process proved profoundly anti-democratic in practice. The amendments were proposed when less than half the membership was eligible to vote, and just a quarter of those workers actually voted. Ultimately, the changes were approved by eight percent of the total membership, with four percent opposed.31
The most crucial proposal, squirreled away in the middle of an Amendment simply titled âElections,â gave the Executive Board a one-time option to move Local-wide elections from December to June 2009 â but with the votes still counted in December!34 The change gave Toussaint and his Executive Board majority the ability to choose an election date they felt would be more friendly to them. Even more important, since workers needed to be in good standing for a full year before they could run for office, this made June 2008 â far before the election was on most workersâ radar â the deadline to pay any back dues owed. Potential opponents were sure the earlier deadlines were meant to give them less time to convince those most angered by the results of the 2005 strike to restore their eligibility to vote.35 That set the stage for the 2009 elections; but
6 A Very Bizarre Contract Round
The Local 100 contract expired January 15, 2009. Local 100âs power was at a particularly low ebb, and the overall economic context was extremely unfavorable. What saved the day for the union was the âpatternâ set by other municipal contracts â and a titanic MTA mistake.
Negotiations took place as the economy plunged into the Great Recession of 2008â09, and with almost half the membership in bad standing. There were no attempts to mobilize members with city-wide rallies (2002) or location-based demonstrations (2005). There was no attempt to outline a plan of action to increase union power (2005). There was no contract survey. There were no articles in the newspaper about bargaining needs, or reports of Toussaint meetings with members about contract needs. None of the By-law provisions of a Contract Policy Committee, a Contract Program, or a Local-wide Negotiating Committee were observed. Division committees were not allowed to bargain with management. Even more than before, ânow everything is done from above,â observed David Katzman, one of the few staffers to have the continuity necessary to make this judgment. âIt peaks in this period.â36
Fortunately for Local 100, Mayor Bloomberg, running in a tough re-election campaign and looking for endorsements, had already set a wage pattern with the municipal unions, two increases of 4 percent annually.37 During a few weeks in October 2008, Toussaint, counsel Terry Meginniss, and sometimes Ed Watt, huddled with Transit president Roberts and agreed to a 3-year pact, with raises of 4-4-3.5 percent. Division Chairs were each given 30-minutes to pitch a single demand from their wish list. A few were incorporated into a tentative agreement; most were not.38
Toussaint was determined to get rid of the inflation escalator clause and the overtime charges on the 1.5 percent health benefit premium, which had caused him so much grief in 2005â06.39 With no power to insist on these changes,
Then the deal fell apart. The pact was sent to Governor Paterson, who (oddly) forwarded it to Mayor Bloomberg for his sign-off. Whether out of concern that the third-year 3.5 percent set a pattern for contracts he had yet to negotiate, or simply due to continued malice against Toussaint and Local 100, Bloomberg slammed the agreement, and Paterson told the MTA to pull the deal.41 The MTA now played the financial crisis card. Successively, it lowered its offer: first, to three years at 3.25 percent annually; then, a one-year 1.47 percent deal; finally, a three-year deal with no raise in the first year and a re-opener for 2010 and 2011.42
Hoping to hold the MTA to its original offer, the union sought binding arbitration. Once again, a contract would not be subject to member approval. As the MTA changed its legal team, hearings were postponed until May 2009. That meant there would be no arbitration ruling until after the scheduled June elections were over. The Toussaint team apparently did not understand this, and failed to put off the elections until the original December date â or they thought the arbitratorâs decision would be bad.43
If so, they misunderstood the arbitrator. John Zuccotti was a long-time New York politico. He was no friend of labor, but neither was he in the bag
âOn June 19,â Zuccotti wrote, âthe MTA withdrew its proposal regarding the implementation of OPTO ⦠apparently, the MTA believed that by withdrawing its OPTO proposal, it would preclude the Panelâs consideration of the unionâs proposal on Employee health contributions.â As Sanderâs stock had fallen with the governor, Dellaversonâs had risen, and he had wormed his way back into the MTA bargaining braintrust. Apparently obsessed with preserving the health contribution concessions he had won in 2005, he was willing to give up OPTO.45 But Zuccotti was having none of it; the MTA had withdrawn its demand but âno evidence was presented at the hearing that the MTAâs OPTO proposal had been a quid pro quo for the unions proposed cap on health contributionsâ â although, of course, that had been the deal back in October. His August 2009 award stretched out the raises, and cut the third year raise to 3 percent â minor nods to the financial crisis â but gave the union its health benefit premium cap.46
The tabloids screamed bloody murder. The Daily News called it âThe Great Train Robbery,â while in the Post Nicole Gelinas labeled it âA Trainwreck of a Contract.â The MTA appealed into the courts, postponing the inevitable until early 2010. Without the OPTO concession, and in the context of the Great Recession, this contract looked like a victory â economically, it was Toussaintâs best result. All this came too late to help the Toussaint teamâs re-election
7 2009 Election
The 2009 election brought the question of race back into the union in a more open way than any time since the mid-1960s, when Joe Carnegie had assembled an African-American-led multi-racial coalition and challenged a leadership that was still overwhelmingly white. There was little question that the early candidacies of Tim Schermerhorn against Sonny Hall were boosted by an âitâs our timeâ feeling among Black transit workers, but New Directions never said as much. Then, under electoral pressure, the incumbents themselves diversified. Beginning in 1994, all the main presidential candidates were people of color â until 2009, when Irishman John Samuelsen led the opposition slate and Toussaint, apparently believing that racial preference lurked as an issue for some number of transit workers, played the race card.
According to numerous accounts, Toussaint was done with Local 100: exhausted and embittered, and with a feeling he had nothing left to accomplish â or was capable of accomplishing â with the now fractured and demoralized membership. Tempted earlier by the prospect of running for City Council, he had not been able to walk away from the union soon enough to launch a successful effort. In the end, the best pathway out of the Local turned out to be into the International, where a new president was eager for allies and willing to give Toussaint the job of âDirector of Strategic Planning.â48
Toussaint was both ready to leave the Local and unwilling to let go of it. The first sign of that reluctance was his refusal to give up the presidency. Instead, he kept the title and had the Executive Board designate Curtis Tate as âacting president.â First elected an RTO division officer in 2003 in the wake of the New
And Toussaint still seemed to be in charge. He was the union representative on the contract arbitration panel. He continued to appoint, monitor, and remove officers and staff. The unionâs safety director, Robin Gillespie, noted that Toussaint âwas really involved with everything ⦠I was still reporting to Roger in terms of strategy.â And he had his hands all over the election campaign â problematic, since as an International officer, he should have been officially neutral in a Local contest.50
According to David Katzman, Tate had little say in the construction of the âUnited Invincibleâ (UI) slate. He was not a charismatic candidate and, unlike Toussaint, did not have the steely will to drive a demoralized staff through an election campaign. United Invincible literature touted its experience and boasted how Tate and the rest of the slate â all holdovers, with one exception â had shepherded the Local through its most recent travails â âforged in the fight to save our Union,â Toussaint wrote on their behalf.51
That was a risky argument, though. It might make voting members â some 20,000 out of 39,000 were in good standing and eligible to vote that spring â proud of their efforts. Or they might ask why the union needed to be saved in the first place. That was Samuelsenâs and his Take Back Our Unionâs (TBOU) framing: âThey talk big, but the truth is they donât know how to negotiate a good contract, how to unite the membership or how to even win a strike. We now have a union with no headquarters building, no money and no contract for most of its members.â And he skewered Toussaint for âma[king] every effort to sell out our train conductors.â52
To turn workers against TBOU, UI tried to portray Samuelsen as a racist. An anonymous post on the UI blog claimed that Samuelsen, who had come to Transit from a job as a Corrections Officer, had used excessive force against Black and Hispanic inmates. Another charged that a teenage Samuelsen had
Some, certainly. Samuelsen was proved right when he called the ideas that Black workers simply would not vote for him, or that people of color voted as a block, âflawed.â That is clear because he won, and because he won RTO and Stations, traditionally the most African-American departments. (These were also the departments with the most disciplinary write-ups; so, whatever the reduction in discipline actually was, it was evidently not substantial enough to push these voters into the Toussaint-Tate camp.)54
But Samuelsen also noted that âthe issue of race came up repeatedly ⦠[Toussaint] had a good chunk of people convinced that I was a white racist from Brooklyn ⦠it was an organizing challenge,â that had to be met âhead-on.â Samuelsen described that work at one particularly difficult crew quarters.
You ever see a shopgate at West 4th? ⦠Itâs all Infrastructure; thereâs some Line Equipment/Signal in there, but itâs really all construction titles ⦠The one big complex where the masons are, it was really 80â90 percent Caribbean in the early 2000s. Thereâs a lot of Russians and Poles in there now, and some Indians as well ⦠but I would go in there to start shopgating and they would slam the dominoes on the table every time I opened my mouth. And I just kept working it and working it and working it and eventually I won a good chunk of them over.55
Something else mattered to transit workers too: some sense of class struggle, or what Samuelsen called, âpeople want[ing] to see a fight. They want a leader-fighter. Itâs why Roger won the first time. He didnât win because he was Caribbean, he won because he was fighting, and fighting intelligently.â Later, Samuelsen said, Toussaint changed, and so workers became disaffected. In its early electoral efforts, New Directions had been able to conflate the racial âitâs our timeâ with militancy. Tate could not do that. Two years of less frosty relations between the top brass at Transit and Local 100 had not dispelled decades of resentments. (Indeed, just the next year, Transit laid-off hundreds of workers after the union refused to tear up its contract and allow OPTO or make other concessions.) Workers, who had stuck with Toussaint against Barry Roberts in 2006, now saw Samuelsen as more likely than Tate to stand up to Transit bullying. With just over 10,000 members voting, TBOU won by 900 votes.56
8 Conclusion: Back to Normalcy
Setting aside its chaos and maladministration, during the final Toussaint years, Local 100 began to resemble a ânormalâ service union: any transformational goals or even ambitions were clearly spent. The Samuelsen years consolidated that trend back toward normalcy.
Heading a divided Local, Samuelsen aspired to make peace with the still sizeable pro-Toussaint faction in the union, and to heal wounds. He was largely successful: in-fighting lessened, the right of opposition division committees to administer was respected, and support grew within an Executive Board on
Local 100 returned to normalcy too in its influence within the International and, unfortunately, in routinized back-scratching and favoritism. In 2013, Samuelsen backed a successful challenge by the head of Philadelphiaâs transit Local and became the Internationalâs Executive Vice President. He moved up to International president in 2017, and Tony Utano, his right-hand-man, was made Local president by the Executive Board. Utano was elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2021 before stepping down in 2023 and designating his successor, Richard Davis. In January 2025, the International removed Davis from office amidst charges of sexual harassment and misappropriation of funds â but not until the month after elections, allowing the Executive Board rather than voters to choose the next president of the Local. Davisâs replacement, John Chiarello, faced charges in 2025 that (in his previous post of Secretary-Treasurer) he authorized salary increases for himself, Utano, and Davis far in excess of that allowed by the Localâs By-laws.58
Challenges to the incumbent officers nevertheless continue, and true to the tradition of Local 100, 40 percent or so of those who vote in elections always seems ready to vote against them, hopeful that the bird in the bush is better than the one they are familiar with. Pockets of opposition emerge in divisions or departments around particular charismatic individuals. No Local 100 president ever truly sleeps soundly at night, but the Samuelsen to Utano to Davis to Chiarello succession was orderly: organized at the union hall, given an Executive Board rubber-stamp, then announced to members. Membership participation and interest in the union, even just in voting, has withered, with only around 30 percent of eligible members casting ballots in 2018, 2021, and 2024, compared with well over 50 percent in 2006, and nearly two-thirds in 1997 and 2000. Those opposition campaigns have a âmore diligent and honestâ
As of 2025, the Samuelsen-Utano-Davis leadership has negotiated four contracts, more-or-less following âthe pattern,â and sometimes making concessions in order to boost the headline wage increase. It spent years cozying up to New Yorkâs Governor Andrew Cuomo and (on his behalf) battering his political rival, Mayor Bill de Blasio, despite Cuomoâs decisive role in pushing an inferior pension plan through the NYS legislature in 2012, similar to that which the strike beat back in 2005. Unlike most other unions, TWU retained its age 55 retirement, but new workers now pay six percent of their salaries annually, instead of two percent previously, and retirement benefits are not as generous.60 As this book goes to press, the Local is sitting out the Zohran Mamdani-Andrew Cuomo Mayoral race. Both the Local and Samuelsenâs International have been completely silent about the policies of Donald Trump, and (as of October 2025) invisible in protests.
said there was a âbe careful what you wish forâ aspect to the idea of public employee strikes minus the severe penalties, even as he pointed out that the TWUâs Philadelphia Local on a couple of occasions had taken advantage of the lack of strong punishment in Pennsylvania. If the strictures in New York were relaxed or removed all together, he said, âThe union has to wonder whether in the future you would have [the law toughened after a
damaging strike], or even whether the public would elect somebody like Scott Walker,â the union busting governor of Wisconsin.61
If it is hard to imagine the Steve Downs who began Hell on Wheels in 1984, with the intention of defending the 1980 strike and militant shop-floor action, writing âbe careful what you wish for,â here is another way in which ânormalcyâ re-established itself.
As for Roger Toussaint, he wore out his welcome at the International when he publicly criticized Samuelsenâs contract negotiating strategy.62 Choosing between Toussaint, brilliant but irascible, but now with little political power, and Samuelsen, heading a Local representing one-third of the Internationalâs delegates, was easy for International president James Little, who sent Toussaint packing. Toussaint returned to Transit for one day in his old trackworker title, to put in his retirement papers. He continues to critique his successorsâ policies in occasional email blasts, but to little practical effect.
Local 100 has fully returned to its pre-New Directions past, re-embracing a service union culture that was challenged but never displaced in the earliest years of the 21st century. Contracts are bargained in back rooms, and contract expiration is not treated as a deadline. Union officers and staff represent, but rarely organize. They feud with Transit and the MTA. They are more or less hard-working, and hard-nosed. But members are largely disengaged. Perhaps they wait for the union to call them out to a rally. When circumstances arise, they will ask âthe unionâ to fix their problem, and it might. They are not engaged in decision-making and not asked their opinion except for twice (election, contract ratification) in every three-year cycle. Here and there ambitious or âmilitant minorityâ activists or officers disrupt service at the point of production over mistreatment, but as a whole, the union that can stop New York exercises no real power, nor, as is unfortunately all too usual in the labor movement, is there a long-range strategy to build any.
Richard Steier, âFor Toussaint, Power Is All Thatâs Left,â The Chief, July 24, 2008.
See Fighting Transit folder, Box 11, MKPTL for some examples: heat problems in a crew quarters and MAC problems for a bus operator (Local 100 Express, Aug. 2007); sign-out procedures for RTO crew (Local 100 Express, Sept. 2007); farming-out of work (Local 100 Express, Feb. 2008); FMLA compliance (leaflet; May 6, 2006), vacation day allotments (Ginger Otis, âLocal 100 Decision Adds Vacation Day,â The Chief, Nov. 9, 2006).
Katzman-Kagan.
Compare election rules in Local 100 Express September 2003 and September 2006 editions. The number of signatures to run for vice presidential slots was cut, and, in any division, a âslateâ need only be composed of the top three officers and the relevant vice-presidential candidate, and not (as before) also Executive Board candidates.
âA simple statistical analysisâ 2006 Elections folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
âTWU Local 100 Election Report 2006,â Local 100 Express, Jan. 2007; âStop the Infighting,â 2006 Elections folder, Box 11, MKPTL. See also Richard Steier, âSound, Fury, and the TWU,â The Chief, Nov. 23, 2006.
TWU Local 100 Election Report 2006, Local 100 Express, Jan. 2007. Three of Toussaintâs victorious VP candidates ran well behind Toussaint, with tallies of between 39 and 35 percent, certainly winning in one race, and perhaps another, only because the opposition was so fractured. Toussaintâs Car Equipment candidate won by two votes after three recounts. The 500 votes for the third-place candidate were anti-Toussaint votes, and certainly would have gone overwhelmingly to the second-place candidate. In RTO, OUâs Curtis Tate won with 35 percent against five other candidates, while OUâs Train Operator division chair candidate, garnering roughly the same percentage vote, lost in a three-candidate race. OUâs Stations VP also won with only 39 percent against three opponents, but likely would have beaten her most formidable opponent, who ran substantially behind her.
âNo interestâ from David Katzman email to Marc Kagan, June 5, 2022, who wrote, âthey got rid of themselvesâ; Russ Smith, âTWU To Miss Bailey,â The Chief, June 8, 2007. For âparallel to the 1990s,â see Chapter 6.
Ari Paul, âToussaint Puts Coal in Foesâ Stockings,â The Chief, Dec. 13, 2007; for â2009â see charges against Marc Albritton, Patrick Lynch, Leif Eikeseth, Dominick Rosato, and Dwayne Hammonds in 2006â09 Internal folder, Box 11, MKPTL; âRein In Toussaintâs Abuses,â The Chief, Jan. 17, 2008.
âTo Jack Blazejewicz from Roger Toussaint,â May 17, 2007, âTo Carlos Albert from Roger Toussaint,â Feb. 6, 2007, and other materials in Track folder, Box 11, MKPTL; Ari Paul, âToussaint Foes: Track Plan Not Good on Safety,â The Chief, Jan. 3, 2008; John Samuelsen, âToussaintâs Stooge,â The Chief, Feb. 7, 2008; Ari Paul, âToussaint Exclusions A Blast At His Past,â The Chief, Feb. 7, 2008.
Ari Paul, âTWU Leader is MIA in MTA Fare Fight,â The Chief, Nov. 22, 2007. For improving, see below.
For the history of the legislation, see Joel Fredericson, âOn the Tracks, Disunity Equals Death,â The Chief, May 8, 2007; for 2004, see Richard Steier, âToussaint: Seize the Moment,â The Chief, May 17, 2007; for 2007, see Ari Paul, âSay Bruno Put Brake On Track Safety Measure,â The Chief, June 14, 2007; âWhy Stall on Track Safety?â The Chief, June 14, 2007; for âSpitzer,â see Richard Steier, âToussaint in the Rough,â The Chief, July 26, 2007.
See Track Safety folder, Box 11, MKPTL; for âget it and go,â see Chapter 5 and Ari Paul, âTrack âCultureâ Contributed to Subway Deaths,â The Chief, Aug. 9, 2007; for âoutside enforcement,â see Goldsmith-Kagan; Joel Fredericson, âSafety Bill Misnamed,â The Chief, July 5, 2007; Joel Fredericson, âOn the Tracks, Disunity Equals Deathâ; Fredericson-Kagan.
Roger Toussaint, âWe were engaged in Civil Disobedience,â April 10, 2006, Political Work and Taylor Law folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
A11227 Espaillat Same as S7880 Spano, May 5, 2006, Political Work and Taylor Law folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
Patterson become Governor when Spitzer resigned. Union âCOPEâ funds are collected separately from dues and are not itemized in LM-2s; Silver and Paterson from William Eng, âTWU Lobbies for Taylor Law Reform,â Legislative Gazette, May 22, 2006; for 2008, see â2008 Local 100 Legislative Agenda,â Local 100 Express Lobby Day 2008 Special Edition; for 2009, see Ari Paul, âBill Splits Burden for âProvokedâ Strikes,â The Chief, June 11, 2009, all in Political Work and Taylor Law folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
In 2007, the full-time job of Executive Director was created and separated from the unpaid job of MTA Chair.
See William Neuman, âTalking It Over at Lunch: Toussaint and M.T.A. Chief,â New York Times, Jan. 17, 2007; about Transit president Howard Roberts, Toussaint later said, âHe negotiated in good faith. His word was his bond, which was completely refreshing when dealing with M.T.A. bosses,â âFor Immediate Release,â Dues Check-Off folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
Katzman-Kagan email, Feb. 16, 2022; Ari Paul, âSander Called a Victim of Circumstance After MTA CEO Forced Outâ; âThe disciplinary landscape shifts,â Local 100 Express, Aug. 2007.
Ginger Otis, âNew MTA Boss Says Discipline Needs Fixing,â The Chief, Feb. 15, 2007; Ari Paul, âUnion Officials Claim MTA Pushed Out âTransitâ Head,â The Chief, Nov. 12, 2009; Ari Paul, âCall Recognition, Communication Crucial at MTA,â The Chief, Jan. 24, 2008.
Again, anecdotally, these numbers increased back to historic levels. Patafio-Kagan.
âJoint Track Safety Task Force: Final Report,â Nov. 20, 2007, Track Safety folder, Box 11, MKPTL; âOld Habits Die Hard,â and âStrong Safety Measures,â Local 100 Express, July 2007; âA New Beginning for Track Safety,â Local 100 Express, Dec. 2007; Robin Gillespie-Marc Kagan interview, Dec. 3, 2019; âSafety: Making It Real,â Local 100 Express, Dec. 2007.
Ari Paul, âTrack Safety Unit Urges Inspections,â The Chief, Dec. 13, 2007; Gillespie-Kagan.
Michael Grynbaum, âBus and Subway President Quits in M.T.A. Shake-Up,â New York Times, Nov. 4, 2009; Ari Paul, âSander Called a Victim of Circumstance After MTA CEO Forced Out,â The Chief, May 14, 2009; William Neuman, âM.T.A. Chief Resigns After Fare Deal,â New York Times, May 8, 2009.
Gillespie-Kagan. Toussaint later claimed his successors were not vigorous in their pursuit of safety. The problem of safety on the tracks continues to this day, with â38 near miss events involving track workers in 2023 ⦠half of the 38 involved improper flagging.â Transit interim president Demetrius Crichlow pooh-poohed this statistic as representing just â0.03 percent of work along the tracks,â Richard Khavkine, âFeds Order MTA, state board to boost safety for subway workers,â The Chief, Aug. 23, 2024.
LM-2 folder, Box 11, MKPTL; For all information on the building sale, see Building Sale folder, Box 11, MKPTL; also see Schwartz-Kagan.
âFor Immediate Release,â Nov. 1, 2007, Dues Check-Off folder, and 2007 LM-2, 70, LM-2 folder, Box 11, MKPTL; For efforts to get members to pay dues, see âTransit Workers: Stand Your Groundâ and many others in Dues Check-Off folder; Clinton-Kagan; Simino-Kagan. Some simply saw this as an opportunity to keep money in their pockets; others worked out complicated schemes in their heads to balance what they saved against the costs of the strike. Dunichev-Kagan. Still others simply missed payments now and then by mistake or forgetfulness. A fourth group claimed that they had made payments which, due to poor bookkeeping, were not credited against their payment balances.
The MTA had urged restoration in the interest of better âlabor harmonyâ: see William Neuman, âM.T.A. Asks for Restoration of Automatic Dues Payment,â New York Times, Nov. 2, 2007. Toussaintâs original affidavit had stated that âthe Union has adhered to the mandates of the Taylor Law ⦠[and] fully recognizes whether there is a right to strike is a matter determined by law. The law is clear. The Taylor Law bars strikes ⦠The Union does not assert the right to strike ⦠or to impose an obligation to conduct, assist or participate in such a strike,â Union statement from âFor Immediate Releaseâ.
Schwartz-Kagan.
LM-2 folder; William Neuman, âTransit Union Leader Vows No More Strikes,â New York Times, Nov. 7, 2008.
17,000 of 38,000 members were eligible to vote; 4600 did so. âMembers approve by-laws reform by 2-to-1 margin,â Local 100 Express, Aug. 2008. For the complete By-laws amendment proposals package, see âTWU Local 100 Proposed Bylaw Amendments,â with vote tally sheet, By-Laws Changes folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
âGood governmentâ proposals included mandates to hold division and section meetings, to ensure that officers attend them, to prohibit workers on pending supervisorâs appointment lists from holding office, and to address the new structures of the âPrivate Lines,â now MTA entities. Notably missing were proposals to elect new vice presidents after vacancies, or mandate run-off elections for important posts recently won with less than 40 percent pluralities.
Ari Paul, âToussaint Bucks Own Style To Make Ex-Foe Top Aide; Courting MaBSTOA Vote?,â The Chief, Dec. 25, 2008.
Toussaintâs explanation for the change was that by consolidating the Local-wide elections with the June 2009 elections for International convention delegates, the union saved money. The sums involved, however, amounted basically to little more than duplicate postage costs. The 2010 LM-2 shows a total payment, to the American Arbitration Association for the simultaneous International convention and Local-wide election, of $40,000 for postage and $311,929 for organization and counting of the multiple ballots. Perhaps some small fraction of the latter charge was saved by scheduling one counting, rather than two separate ones: see LM-2 folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
In the 2009 elections, two of the oppositionâs top four candidates had to be replaced at the last moment because they had not been in good standing for the required year. For âoppositionâ see Ari Paul, âToussaint Wants To Speed Vote But Delay Counting Ballots,â The Chief, June 19, 2008; in the end, just over half of members were in good standing and eligible to vote. Dues payment rates (and thus voter eligibility) were highest in OA: hence the importance of the overture to Barry Roberts.
Katzman-Kagan; TWU Express folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
Reuven Blau, âSergeant Pay: Start at $73G, Top at 95G,â The Chief, July 19, 2007; David Sims, âDC 37 Accepts Deal With 4% Hikes Plus.1 in Additional Pay,â The Chief, Nov. 6, 2008.
Katzman-Kagan.
See Chapter 10.
For inflation escalator clause, and the overtime charges, see Chapter 10. For the dollar value of the various changes, see John Zuccotti, âIn the Matter of the Impasse Between NYCTA and MaBSTOA and MTA Bus Company and TWU Local 100,â Aug. 11, 2009; Downs-Kagan emails, June 15, 2022, both in 2009 Arbitration folder, Box 11, MKPTL. See Chapter 6 for prior Transit attempts to expand OPTO.
Paterson, who had found himself unexpectedly elevated to the Governorship, may have believed he needed Bloombergâs support to successfully seek re-election in 2010.
See history of offers in Zuccotti, âIn the Matter of the Impasseâ.
Ibid. See Richard Steier, âGearing For Fight, TWU Seems Past Its Prime,â The Chief, April 30 for speculation that the union was in no rush to have an arbitration award before the election.
Zuccotti, âIn the Matter of the Impasseâ; see Chapter 3 for 1982 and Chapter 4 for 1984. See Richard Steier, âToussaint: Seize the Moment,â The Chief, May 17, 2007 for another example of a union that benefited from pattern-bargaining (the PBA, 1987) along with a host of examples where it was the employer that benefitted.
Zuccotti, âIn the Matter of the Impasseâ; Ed Watt, âCritics are off Track,â New York Daily News, Aug. 16, 2009 ascribed the decision to pull OPTO to acting MTA CEO Helena Williams. But it seems unlikely that Williams, head of the LIRR, would have known or cared about these two cost-equivalent provisions. David Katzman ascribes the key role to Dellaverson; Katzman-Kagan.
Zuccotti, âIn the Matter of the Impasseâ.
âThe Great Train Robbery,â New York Daily News, Aug. 12, 2009; Nicole Gelinas, âTrainwreck of a Contract,â New York Post, Aug. 12, 2009. Workers hired between June and December were allowed to vote in December.
For ânumerous accountsâ see Schwartz-Kagan; Meginniss-Kagan; Katzman-Kagan; Clinton-Kagan; Ari Paul, âToussaint Off Local 100 Payroll But Still Runs Unionâs Operations,â The Chief, May 29, 2009 and Ari Paul, âLawyer: Donât Believe Deposition, Toussaint Still Runs Local 100,â The Chief, June 5, 2009. Clinton-Kagan also notes that Toussaint neither consulted with his supporters, nor gave them advance warning of his decision to move to the International or select Curtis Tate as his replacement, giving them no chance to consider or coalesce around a candidate or a perspective. For a kinder take on Toussaintâs elevation, see Russ Smith, âGood for TWU International,â The Chief, Dec. 12, 2008.
For âplaceholder,â see Simino-Kagan; Clinton-Kagan; Schwartz-Kagan; Katzman-Kagan.
For âappoint and removeâ see Daniel Silverman, âDecision,â Oct. 29, 2009, 2009 Election Challenges folder, Box 11; âFor The Record,â The Chief, March 26, 2009; Richard Steier, âWhat Killed Roger Rebel? A Self-Inflicted Woundâ; Gillespie-Kagan; for âproblematic,â see âToussaintâs Peculiar Rules,â The Chief, May 28, 2009.
Katzman-Kagan; âVote the Full United Invincible Slate,â 2009 Election folder, Box 11, MKPTL.
âVote For Change: Take Back Our Union,â 2009 Election folder; John Samuelsen, âBluster on the Tracks,â The Chief, Oct. 16, 2009.
For various charges, see Benita Johnson, âFoes Slime Samuelsen,â The Chief, April 24, 2009; Ari Paul, âTBOU: TWU Incumbents Played Race Card in Vote,â The Chief, June 26, 2009; Ari Paul, âTWU Challenger Claims Incumbents Defamed Him,â The Chief, May 8, 2009; Richard Steier, âRoger and the Race Card,â The Chief, April 18, 2008; Ari Paul, âQuestion Toussaintâs Invocation of Race,â The Chief, April 18, 2009.
Samuelsen won RTO 888â506 even though Tate came from that department: see 2009 Elections folder, Box 11, MKPTL. No other departmental or divisional breakdowns are available, but in head-to-head elections, Samuelsenâs VPs for RTO, Stations, MoW, and Private Lines won; Ari Paul, âSamuelsen Slate Triumphs in Bitter TWU Election.â The Chief, Dec. 11, 2009.
Samuelsen-Kagan.
Samuelsen-Kagan; Paul, âSamuelsen Slate Triumphs in Bitter TWU Electionâ; Richard Steier, âTWU Calls 750 Layoffs A Bargaining Squeeze,â The Chief, May 6, 2010; Russo Jr.-Kagan and Feliciano-Kagan were two militant workers who had stuck with Toussaint in 2006, despite their dissatisfaction with the early end of the strike, but now voted for Samuelsen.
Samuelsen-Kagan.
David Giambusso, âNYC transit union chief ousted over allegations of sexual abuse, union says,â Gothamist, Jan. 25, 2025. The By-laws mandate that annual Officer raises can be no greater than those in NYCT contracts.
In 2012 and 2015, opposition candidates received 43 percent of the vote; in 2018, 36 percent; in 2021, 41 percent; in 2024, 38 percent.
In the 2012â17 contract, the union agreed to raise the health benefit premium from 1.5 to 2 percent of base salary and to increase time to top pay from three years to five, a concession paid for by the âunborn.â A slightly above-pattern increase in that contract came in return for assisting Governor Andrew Cuomo in driving down possible salary hikes at the MTAâs LIRR and MetroNorth. Richard Steier, âEditorial: Tough Sell on TWU Deal,â The Chief, April 21, 2014; âFor the Record,â The Chief, April 21, 2014; Richard Steier, âSamuelsen Defends Deal, Cuomo, MTA Gain Most,â The Chief, April 28, 2014. For all Local 100 contracts, see http://www.twulocal100.org/contracts-taoamta-bus. For a comparison of pension benefits, see https://www.osc.ny.gov/retirement/employers/comparison-ers-benefits.
For the politics of Local 100-Cuomo in 2018, see Bob Hennelly and Richard Steier, âNixon: Public Workers Deserve Right to Strike,â The Chief, Aug. 10, 2018; Gary Bono, âTWU a Tool of Cuomo,â The Chief, Sept. 17, 2018, and Richard Steier, âSeeking New Direction After a Life in Transit,â The Chief, Oct. 1, 2018. The parenthetical in the Downs quote â [the law toughened after a damaging strike] â is The Chief âs, not mine.
Richard Steier, âAs TWU Talks Intensify, Internal Feud Reignites,â The Chief, Jan. 20, 2012.