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Here’s a bit of Labor Day irony. The man who led the historic 2005 bus and subway strike—which forced millions of commuters to squeeze into packed cabs, pedal bicycles they hadn’t used for years and hike to work like intrepid Boy Scouts—is now a licensed cab driver. Roger Toussaint, the fiery former president of Transport Workers Union Local 100, got his permit in December to drive a taxi in Cobb County, Ga., where he now lives, records show. “Driving a cab is a dignified profession,” Toussaint, 55, said during a telephone interview last week. …

In 2004, Tim Pawlenty faced a choice: accede to the transit union’s compensation demands or risk igniting a strike that would seriously disrupt commuters’ lives. Pawlenty chose the strike. That’s a decision the Minnesota governor has highlighted recently, no doubt hoping to benefit from the same sort of enthusiasm that made Wisconsin governor Scott Walker a Tea Party favorite for his dogged fight to limit public-employee unions’ collective-bargaining powers. “I took on the public-employee unions before it was popular to do it,” Pawlenty said two weeks ago in his speech in Iowa announcing his candidacy. “On the 45th day of...

..."My job is in Barrhaven. I work nights. I must walk 18 kilometres to work. It takes six hours. And then I must walk six hours home after I work all night. I am nearly 60. "This strike shouldn't happen," she says. "I come home, I rest for a few hours. Can you imagine to work all night and after to walk 18 kilometres home and then, sit down for two or three hours and then walk back and work all night again?"...

NEW YORK (AP) The union that crippled New York City's transit system last month with a three-day strike has rejected its contract.

He was excoriated on tabloid front pages and by the mayor and governor. As thousands streamed across the Brooklyn Bridge on a frigid night during last week's transit strike, someone in a car yelled out his name, prefacing it with a curse. But now, a day after details of an agreement between the transit workers and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority were spelled out, Roger Toussaint, the union's president, seems to have emerged in a far better position than seemed likely just a few days ago. Mr. Toussaint, whose back appeared to be against the wall last week, can boast of...

Patricia and Santana Bonilla live a half-block from the staircase to an el that had no trains Tuesday. The el stop is at Knickerbocker Avenue and Myrtle Avenue. Without the life of the city on its rails, the el was desolate at a place that is usually throbbing. In this strike, you follow the silent tracks into places where most are without money and find so many being strangled by landlords. The Bonillas are on the first floor of an old frame house on Himrod Street in Bushwick, in Brooklyn. The husband and wife are both 48, from Mexico and...

<p>Putting New York through hell for three days, just before Christmas?</p> <p>Just what exactly did you gain for your members by doing that?</p> <p>Everyone knows you couldn't give a hoot about what you did to the city.</p> <p>But what about your own members?</p>

WCBS 880's John Metaxas has just reported that TWU's executive committee has voted 38-5, with two abstentions, to resume subway and bus service as negotiations with the MTA continue. The trains and buses could be moving again within 12 to 18 hours. "Both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences,'' said Richard Curreri, head of a three-member state mediation panel had said earlier Thursday. "They have agreed to resume negotiations while the TWU takes steps to return its membership.'' A judge has already imposed a $1 million-per-day fine on the union for defying an order barring the strike...

Eyewitness News has learned that the TWU executive board has voted to end the transit strike. Thirty six members voted to end the strike, five voted against ending the strike and two members abstained from the vote. Here is the latest: the transit union has agreed to take steps to restore service to New York's buses and subways while both sides resume negotiations. At this point, there is no timetable for the restoration of service. State mediators devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the MTA contract dispute. Mediators say the two sides have agreed to the deal, pending...

NEW YORK - Striking bus and subway workers agreed Thursday to "take steps" to go back to work while their union and the transit authority resume negotiations, a mediator said. The deal with the Transit Workers Union could pave the way for a resumption in service by Friday, if the union's executive board gives the final OK. The strike, the system's first in 25 years, halted service for millions. "Both parties have a genuine desire to resolve their differences," said Richard Curreri, head of a three-member state mediation panel. "They have agreed to resume negotiations while the TWU takes steps...

After meeting with both sides through the night, state mediators have devised a preliminary framework for a settlement of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority contract dispute that would allow strikers to return to work later today, according to four people close to the negotiations. The people emphasized that the details of a final settlement would take at least a day or two longer to be finalized, although buses and subways would be running before that. The agreement, they said, would give every side some of what it asked for. It would allow Gov. George E. Pataki to save face because the...

NEW YORK (AP) - There's one silver lining to the New York City transit strike that has shut down buses and subways, while crippling many businesses. Online retailing - which has enjoyed robust sales this holiday season - is getting a further boost in the season's final days, as New York area shoppers turn to the Internet for last-minute buying. And there are at least a handful of merchants including jcrew.com and ice.com that are only too willing to help out by serving up free shipping aimed at New York area residents that guarantee arrival before Dec. 25. For New...

December 22, 2005 -- WHILE countless ordinary New Yorkers were trudging home from work in the bitter cold Tuesday night due to the transit strike, Transport Workers Union boss Roger Toussaint and his chaos-causing labor cronies were living the high life at an upscale uptown eatery. Toussaint and his comrades were in a jubilant mood at chichi Harlem Grill, an elegant supper club on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard with gleaming candelabras, antique mirrors and live jazz. A spywitness tells PAGE SIX's Fernando Gil: "[Toussaint and his party] were there for at least 2 1/2 hours. People kept coming and...

December 22, 2005 -- A furious Brooklyn judge yesterday threatened to toss transit-union leaders in jail for ignoring his injunction against a walkout — calling it a "distinct possibility." In a stunning announcement on the second day of the transit strike, Supreme Court Justice Theodore Jones ordered Roger Toussaint, head of Transport Workers Union Local 100, and union bigs Ed Watt and Darlyne Wilson to be in his court at 11 a.m. today. The hearing could result in "one or more of these persons being sent to jail," the judge said. "That is a possibility and a distinct...

Hey, what's the rush? Why display an ounce of concern when New Yorkers can't get to their jobs and back, the economy is hemorrhaging, taxpayers are getting slammed and 33,700 transit workers are being whacked with $14 million a day in fines and lost pay? Show the slightest inclination to settle the transit strike? Not if you are Roger Toussaint. If you're Roger Toussaint, you compare yourself to Rosa Parks, say you only want "respect," paint the Metropolitan Transportation Authority as out of touch with minorities and women, start to push inflammatory race and class buttons and claim that you...

Here Are The Results of SurveyUSA News Poll #7876Geography Surveyed: New York DMAData Collected: 12/21/2005 Release Date: 12/21/2005 8:40 PM ET Sponsoring News Organization: WABC-TV New York Half in NYC with Union, Half with Management: Two-thirds of New York City area residents say transit workers should not have gone on strike, according to a SurveyUSA poll of 800 metropolitan area adults conducted 12/21/05 exclusively for WABC-TV. But: when Tri-State adults are asked to choose sides in the debate, half say they are with the Union, half say they are with Management. By 5:4, New Yorkers approve of NYC Mayor Michael...

NEW YORK - The war of words over the transit strike took an ugly turn after Mayor Michael Bloomberg described union heads as "thuggish," a remark some said was racist in the context of a predominantly black union. During his first briefing on the strike Tuesday at City Hall, Bloomberg complained that union leaders had "thuggishly turned their backs on New York City and disgraced the noble concept of public service." A group of City Council members and black leaders said Wednesday that Bloomberg's comment was racist because it was directed at leaders of a union that is less than...

NEW YORK (AP) Members of the striking Transport Workers Union's face the loss of two days pay for every day they are on strike. Aside from the loss of pay, the strikers have lost the backing of their union, The International Transport Workers Union. The international union is urging strikers to go back to work. Bus driver Bill McRae who has worked in transit since 1985 says ``The union executives called for a strike, and we have to do what we have to do.'' Lawrence Reuter, President of the NYC Transit, told NY One News that about one thousand transit...

December 21, 2005 -- A cabby belted an Upper East Side woman in the face last night after she argued that she was overcharged on an eight-block ride, police said ......... Lillian Gauna, 34, said she hailed the cab at 88th Street and Third Avenue at around 8:30 p.m. and asked the driver to take her to 81st Street and Second Avenue. The driver, Muhammed Lone, 29, insisted she pay an extra $5 on top of the $10 "single zone" flat fare that the new strike rules call for, she said. When she refused, Lone allegedly leaped out of his...

A Brooklyn judge has ordered TWU Local 100 President Roger Toussaint and two union officials to appear in court tomorrow and answer contempt-of-court charges that could result in jail time. The ruling comes as a mediator is holding separate meeting with the MTA and the TWU today. Mayor Michael Bloomberg will hold a 2:30 p.m. news conference at City Hall to update the area on the situation. The Mayor slept at the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) in Brooklyn again Tuesday night and walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to work on Wednesday morning. NYC commuter rail lines have activated their...