NEW YORK — He was never the most flamboyant or confrontational of transit union leaders, but in his nine years as head of Transport Workers Local 100, Sonny Hall managed to thread a steady course between the divergent demands of management and labor, according to a report from Newsday.
Now, as the international union president with strong ties to the state’s political and labor establishment, he could play a pivotal behind-the-scenes part in averting a bus-and-subway strike, several labor leaders said yesterday.
Hall’s record at TWU suggests he is qualified to play such a role.
During his years with Local 100, from 1985 to 1994, Hall avoided boxing his union members into a corner, even when negotiations with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority turned tough.
With the local’s contract about to expire back in 1992 – and the memory of the city’s bitter 1980 transit strike still relatively fresh – Hall finessed a tentative deal with the MTA. It called for binding arbitration if his members, with their long tradition of no contract no work, refused to go along with it.
They approved the stopgap in the end.
His influence over the course of the current contract dispute is complicated by his strained ties to Local 100 president Roger Toussaint and other leaders of the 34,000-employee unit.
Indeed, Hall publicly clashed with Toussaint just months ago over his handling of a strike by the drivers of Queens private bus lines.
Considering Hall’s pragmatic style, though, labor leaders consider it unlikely he would launch any new battles with Touissant in haste.
“Sonny’s got to worry about 100 because they’re the biggest local in his union,” another labor leader said. “He has to be convinced he’ll come out a winner before he commits himself publicly.”
Yesterday, Hall did not return telephone calls for comment.
One reason his name keeps coming up is his rapport with Gov. George Pataki. Toussaint’s local, in contrast, endorsed Pataki challenger H. Carl McCall for governor, albeit waiting until five days before the November election to do so.
Local 100 is the largest of the 62 locals in the 125,000-member parent union and has often been the training ground for promotion to the international union. Four of the six presidents of the international started with Local 100, including TWU founder Michael Quill in 1934.