Commemorating the 20th Anniversary of the New York City Transit Strike

In the early hours of December 20, 2005, 33,000 Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) workers represented by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 went on a strike, breaking the Taylor Law—a New York state law prohibiting public workers from striking—and effectively shutting down the city’s subway and bus system for two and a half days.

Among other grievances the workers raised through the strike, the company had attempted to raise the retirement age from 55 to 62 in negotiations, then replaced this with an attempted imposition of workers’ pension contributions of 6% for new hires, which would have meant large wage cuts and the creation of a second, lower tier of workers.

Delivering an estimated $1 billion blow to the city’s revenue during the height of the holiday season, the strike forced the MTA to drop the proposed pension contributions. Workers won a 10.5% wage increase over 3 years, lifetime medical coverage, Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday, and a refund totaling $131.7 million for 20,000 workers who paid the 5.3% pension contribution prior to the 2001 contract.

As a penalty for striking, the state fined the TWU Local $2.5 million, workers had 2 days of wages for every strike day deducted from their paychecks, and Roger Toussaint, the president of the local, was jailed for 3 days for refusing to order strikers back to work. The state also removed automatic collection of union dues—an attempt to weaken the union— but the union organized dues collection and most workers continued to pay, according to Toussaint.

By striking in 2005 the workers also stood up to the TWU international which demanded they cease the illegal strike and follow negotiations as “the only road to victory” while encouraging scabbing.

The strike ended with a tentative agreement the rank-and-file later rejected in a close vote, but accepted in a second vote called by Toussaint. By then, the state had imposed the contract through arbitration. The contract included a concession raising workers’ healthcare payments, which the union argued was offset by the wage increases and the lifetime medical coverage.

20 years later, as TWU Local 100’s current contract from 2023 is set to expire this May, The Worker spoke with current and retired MTA workers who participated in the 2005 strike.

Workers reflected on the successes of the strike, attributing them to the militancy of Toussaint’s leadership and the union’s educational programs that increased workers’ engagement and participation. “We got everything that we were seeking,” a current worker explained, “Members were involved, people were driven, filled with anger and passion.”

Since the New Directions movement, a group within Local 100 led by Toussaint, was voted into union leadership in 2001, the union began shop steward and officer training to educate and develop leaders among workers, as well as changing the benefits that union leaders and staffers received to match that of rank-and-file MTA workers. “We had the highest level of people attending meetings when Toussaint was there,” the worker stated.

A retired worker recalled, “In the first few years I was working from 2003, the union would meet with us once a month to discuss what the problems are.” The retiree expressed his support for the strike, adding: “Even though we faced financial repercussions, I still think it was worth it to strike because it put out a notice. Should we do it again? Yes!” Another retired worker agreed: “When Toussaint was here, we were getting raises that were a little bit better; he fought more. When you strike, they give you whatever you want because you shut down the city.”

Workers emphasized that the strike demonstrates the necessity of fighting outside the bounds of legality. “Taylor Law forces us to comply to their law even though we don’t like their law,” a retiree said, “So we said no, it don’t work like that.” Another explained, “When I started, I got paid $4.75 an hour for training for 7 weeks. You can’t live on $4.75 an hour. Now, they [trainees] get full check. But that came from us who broke the law and kept fighting.”

In a December 2025 presentation commemorating the 20th anniversary of the 2005 MTA strike, Roger Toussaint affirmed: “You cannot attack us and then insist that you have the right to dictate to us how we fight back. […] You have to be prepared to break the rules.”

In his presentation, Toussaint acknowledged the moral and financial support that Local 100 received from other unions, while pushing the need for increased coordination across struggles: “[Other unions] could have made a credible threat that they were going to join the TWU if this wasn’t fixed in a more reasonable manner.” Retired workers shared similar sentiments with The Worker, stating, “If some city workers break the law and strike, everybody should join in. Then they’ll see that they have power. They can’t fire everybody.”

The masses of NYC provided material support to striking workers and denounced monopoly media and elected officials’ portrayal of transit workers as “thugs,” as recounted by City University of New York professor Joshua Freeman at the anniversary presentation. This was in part due to the union’s involvement in broader working class struggles, such as the fight against transit fare hikes. Toussaint explained, “When labor was at its best, at its strongest, its most effectiveness, it was when it based itself on an alliance with the working class communities in New York.”

Interviewed workers shared frustrations with the anti-worker shift in the union after John Samuelsen took over leadership of the local in 2009. “After Toussaint, the union ended up getting us less money every time there was a contract negotiation,” a retiree explained, “It never caught up to the cost of living.” When the 2008 contract expired in 2012, the union allowed the MTA to stall negotiations for 2 years, forcing workers to work without a contract until 2014. In the 2014 contract, Samuelsen passively accepted the 6% pension contribution for new workers that the 2005 strike fought to prevent.

Workers described cuts in the union’s education and training programs that were in place during Toussaint’s leadership. One worker explained: “They dumbed down the membership tremendously. The current union, especially, did not want the workers to understand the past history, and some have no clue, they’re clueless. They also stopped the shop steward program, so there’s no direct training or field [training]. Our union is practically worthless now.”

When asked at the December presentation about how workers can agitate and mobilize other workers towards more militant means, Toussaint responded: “My focus would be on the conscious, more progressive, more militant elements among the workers. […] It always starts with two or three people, that’s always how change starts.” He added methods to begin organizing one’s workplace: “Meet and organize because organizing multiplies your strength, multiplies your reach. Put out leaflets, put out information.”

A worker reiterated to The Worker the importance of education: “You have to know your past to know where you’re going. If you don’t study your past, you’ll get tripped up by every trick and trade that they have in the book to come after you. Learn your past. Study it.”

Image: Workers mobilize at the opening of the December 2005 MTA transit workers strike in New York City. CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies.

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