In quest of democracy at Amalgamated Transit Convention

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By Rachel Padgett

Peter Fionda, a longtime member of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 241, attended the ATU national convention in Las Vegas this September. Local 241 represents bus drivers employed by Chicago. This is the story as he told it to us:

At his own expense, Pete traveled to Las Vegas, checked into a convention hotel, where he tried to distribute literature to the delegates describing the state of his Local 241 and announcing his intention to run for a position as international vice president. After getting the okay from the ATU chief legal counsel to hand out fliers, he was removed from the convention floor and banned from entering any establishment owned by the hotel. This didn't stop him.

He rented a car the next day and drove to the Hoover Dam to intercept an ATU delegate field trip and pass out his fliers at this historic landmark. There he was accosted by men wearing ATU T-shirts who threatened him, forcing him to stop distributing his campaign literature. On September 23, Fionda sent a "formal appeal contesting [the] validity of international elections" to International President Warren George, asking specifically that the election of Rodney Richmond as international vice president from his region be overturned on two main grounds: 1. that Fionda had been denied his seat as an elected delegate, and 2. that the union had interfered with his right to campaign against Richmond. (At this time, George has not replied to his appeal.)

On the surface, Pete Fionda might seem like a mere convention visitor, a lone crusader bent on having his individual voice heard. Not so! Pete was one of three delegates, elected in October 2002 by the Local 241 members to represent them at the convention. But he was cheated out of his election and denied a seat at the convention when a trusteeship was imposed on Local 241 by the international immediately following the delegate election. The trusteed local was thereupon deprived of elected representation. Fionda reports that an international vice president appointed delegates in their place. (Federal law requires the secret ballot election of delegates who, in turn, elect international officers.) His trip to Las Vegas was intended to issue the call for a national rank and file reform group, Transit Workers for a Democratic Union (TWDU).

ATU international officers are elected by the delegates at international conventions. Fionda was denied a delegate seat at the convention and, by threats of violence, was deprived of his right to campaign. These restrictions on his democratic rights establish the basis for his challenge to the validity of the vice presidential election.

Stories of membership dissent in Local 241 are nothing new. Conflict has been provoked by the extraordinary measures officials have taken to limit the right of members to run for office, especially the unusually restrictive meeting attendance requirements. Back in 1996, Richard Stomper, then a Local 241 member, represented by attorney Paul Levy, charged that a restrictive meeting attendance rule made the election of the local's convention delegates illegal, thereby calling into question the election of international officers by those delegates. The challenge was not successful.

At the 1995 ATU convention, International President Jim Lasala proposed to reduce the requirement that a candidate attend at least six meetings in the year before nominations. The delegates not only rejected the proposals; they made the requirement even more onerous. They retained the old requirement for the private sector where rights are protected by federal law; but they stiffened the rule for public employees, who are not protected by federal law, by upping their requirement to attendance at six meetings in each of two prior years.

Many Local 241 members became so disgusted that they attempted, unsuccessfully to decertify the union. Stomper, who had been a leader of the opposition inside Local 241, is no longer a member. Deeply pessimistic, he says that with the extraordinarily restrictive meeting attendance rule "there is no way to get a fair election." Peter Fionda, on the other hand, remains passionately devoted to rank and file reform. His underlying message, through Transit Workers for a Democratic Union, is "You can't fix your local until the international does what it is supposed to do." The question is whether his TWDU, based in Local 241, can evoke an echo elsewhere in the ATU. Pete Fionda continues to fight for his union. He encourages any ATU members engaged in the same struggle to contact him and Transit Workers for a Democratic Union. Email: twdu@hotmail.com Write: TWDU, PO Box 438, Midlothian, IL 60445