November 10, 2008
No more transit strikes, TWU promises
Roger Toussaint, president of Transport Workers Union, whose illegal pre-Christmas transit strike in 2005 nearly crippled New York City, has told a judge that his union will not stage a strike when its contract expires in January.
Toussaint hopes to win back the right to have union dues automatically deducted from members pay checks. Supreme Court Justice Bruce M. Balter imposed the penalty after the union struck and said he would lift the penalty only after TWU vowed not to strike again. The union also was fined $2.5 million.
Balter will hold a hearing today on the union's motion to restore the dues check off. The union has been hard hit by the penalty. Only about half its members are voluntarily paying their dues.
According to the New York Times (here), an affidavit dated October 21, says the union:
"does not assert the right to strike against any government" and that the union "has no intention, now or in the future" of conducting or threatening a strike against the transit agency.
City Corporation Counsel Michael A. Cardoza told the Times the city would not oppose today's court motion, but it does not guarantee the TWU won't strike in the future. The union has conducted three illegal strikes since 1966.
(For background, see here, here and here.)
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