TWU Local 100 History

1980s

Main article: 2005 New York City transit strike

In December 2005, the Transport Workers Union Local 100 (TWU) called a strike in New York City. Negotiations for a new contract with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) broke down over retirement, pension, and wage increases. The strike began at 3:00 a.m. EST on December 20, 2005. Most New York City Transit Authority and MTA Bus Company personnel observed the strike, effectively halting all service on the subway and buses, except for routes operated from the Spring Creek Depot, where workers represented by ATU Local 1181/1061 had a contract in force after striking against the predecessor operator, Command Bus Company, the previous year. Millions of commuters were affected. The strike officially ended at 2:35 p.m. EST on December 22, 2005. Service was restored overnight, with all transportation systems fully operational by the morning commute of the 23rd.^[3]

On December 27, 2005 the executive board of Local 100 of the TWU accepted a 37-month contract offer from the MTA. The 37-month length was crucial, as the last contract ended on December 15, causing disruption of the New York City economy just in the middle of the holiday season. Now the next contract would expire in mid-January. (However, the union workers rejected the new contract by 7 votes – 11,234 to 11,227 – on January 20, 2006, but overwhelmingly approved it three months later, even though the offer had been legally retracted.)

This was the third strike ever against New York City’s Transit Authority. The first was a 12-day walkout in 1966 which prompted the creation of New York‘s Taylor Law. The second was the 11-day 1980 strike. The 2005 strike, which took place during the busiest shopping week of the year, had significantly affected the local economy since many people had then chosen to avoid shopping in New York by either shopping online, or by postponing purchases.^{[not verified in body]}

On April 10, 2006, Justice Theodore T. Jones sentenced Local 100 President Roger Toussaint to ten days in jail^[4] and a week later, the union was fined 2.5 million dollars and the automatic deduction of dues from all members was suspended.^[5]

2000s

Local 100, the public transit local representing New York City employees, has always been the largest and most influential local within the union. Rank-and-file opponents of the current national leadership took office on December 13, 2000. Some of their original supporters have, however, broken with the current local leadership to create an organization that remains critical of the local’s performance in collective bargaining negotiations.

On December 16, 2005, after failed negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) of New York City, the Local 100 of the TWU announced it will halt operations on two private bus lines and threatened to extend the strike to other buses and trains. The deadline for the strike was extended to December 20 at 12:01 a.m., and the TWU rejected the MTA’s final contract offer at around 11 p.m. on December 19. After the deadline’s passing Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the TWU declared the start of the 2005 New York City transit strike around 3:00 a.m. on December 20. The strike, which was opposed by the international leadership of the TWU, was illegal, in violation of New York state’s Taylor Law.^[6][7]

The main issue was not wages, but Pensions. Currently, a worker can retire after 25 years at age 55 with half pay. Using the Annuity2000 Merged Gender Mod 1 Life table with ages set back 2 years, a 3.5% annual salary increase and a 5.0% interest rate for calculation purposes, the current pension costs the employer—the taxpaying public—roughly 25.4% of salary per year for someone who starts work at age 30 and retires at age 55. If the TWU Local 100 loses and the retirement age is set age 62 for that same 30-year-old, then the cost per year would be 17%. This calculates to a 7% wage cut per year for every year.

A court ordered the TWU to pay fines of $1 million for each day that workers were on strike. On December 21, a judge ordered the heads of the local TWU to appear in court at 11 a.m. the following day, when possible jail time would be considered for the local TWU president, secretary treasurer, and recording secretary. Mayor Bloomberg was not in favor of jail time because he did not want to turn the heads of the TWU into martyrs. With negotiations going on the following day, the judge postponed the court appearance for the TWU heads until 4 p.m. in order to let the negotiations continue. At approximately 2:30 p.m., the TWU executive board finally voted to order workers to end the strike and report back to work.

On January 20, 2006, it was announced that the workers voted by a margin of only 7 votes to reject the contract that was negotiated to end the 2005 strike, but a revote was done three months later and the contract was overwhelmingly approved. However, the MTA has said the contract is off the table and sought binding arbitration in settling the negotiation, which ended on December 15, 2006, almost a year after the strike.