Alan Viani was head of the Department of Research at DC37, the largest municipal union in New York City, from 1973 to 1985. He was later involved with resolving the 2005 NYC transit strike.
In 1965, Viani helped lead a strike by over eight thousand workers for the New York City Department of Welfare. The strike was largely successful, as it led to a clear statement of the rights of city employees to collective bargaining. [1] It also led to the appointment of Victor Gotbaum as DC37's Executive Director. [2]
Viani was later an assistant to DC37 Department of Research head Daniel Nelson, and took over the position after Nelson's death in 1973. [2] He was DC37's lead negotiator in this role until 1985, when he joined the New York City Office of Collective Bargaining. [3]
In 1993, he retired to become a mediator and arbitrator. [3] In 2005, Viani was part of a three-member mediation team that helped the two sides to resolve their differences in the 2005 New York transit strike. [4]
In 2015, Viani was appointed as a neutral member to the New York City Board of Collective Bargaining.
The Railway Labor Act is a United States federal law that governs labor relations in the railroad and airline industries. The Act, enacted in 1926 and amended in 1934 and 1936, seeks to substitute bargaining, arbitration, and mediation for strikes to resolve labor disputes. Its provisions were originally enforced under the Board of Mediation, but they were later enforced under a National Mediation Board.
The New York City Transit Authority is a public-benefit corporation in the U.S. state of New York that operates public transportation in New York City. Part of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the busiest and largest transit system in North America, the NYCTA has a daily ridership of 8 million trips.
The International Union, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, better known as the United Auto Workers (UAW), is an American labor union that represents workers in the United States and southern Ontario, Canada. It was founded as part of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s and grew rapidly from 1936 to the 1950s. The union played a major role in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party under the leadership of Walter Reuther. It was known for gaining high wages and pensions for auto workers, but it was unable to unionize auto plants built by foreign-based car makers in the South after the 1970s, and it went into a steady decline in membership; reasons for this included increased automation, decreased use of labor, movements of manufacturing, and increased globalization.
William Julian Usery Jr. was an American labor union activist and government appointee who served as United States secretary of labor in the Ford administration.
The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), founded in 1947, is an independent agency of the United States government, and the nation's largest public agency for dispute resolution and conflict management, providing mediation services and related conflict prevention and resolution services in the private, public, and federal sectors. FMCS is tasked with mediating labor disputes around the country; it provides training and relationship development programs for management and unions as part of its role in promoting labor-management peace and cooperation. The Agency also provides mediation, conflict prevention, and conflict management services outside the labor context for federal agencies and the programs they operate. The FMCS headquarters is located in Washington, D.C., with other offices across the country.
Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) is a United States labor union that was founded in 1934 by subway workers in New York City, then expanded to represent transit employees in other cities, primarily in the eastern U.S. This article discusses the parent union and its largest local, Local 100, which represents the transport workers of New York City. TWU is a member of the AFL–CIO.
Elisabeth A. Gotbaum is an American civil servant, politician and a former New York City public advocate. She was elected Public Advocate for New York City in 2001 and reelected in 2005. She was the third woman elected to a citywide post in NYC history. The other two were Carol Bellamy, who served as city council president from 1978 to 1985, and Elizabeth Holtzman, who served as comptroller from 1990 to 1993. Gotbaum is a Democrat and currently serves as Executive Director of Citizens Union.
Roger Toussaint an American worker who led the December 20th, 2005 New York City transit strike which lasted three days and shut down bus and subway service in the city. Toussaint was the president of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100 in New York City (NYC) from January 2001 through December 2009. TWU Local 100 represents the majority of hourly employees at the New York City Transit Authority (NYCTA), Manhattan and the Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority (MaBSTOA), MTA Bus and is the largest local transportation union in the USA. As a result of this strike, the union was fined heavily and Toussaint jailed briefly. The December 2005 strike was the first strike shutting down public transportation in NYC in 25 years.
The Public Employees Fair Employment Act, more commonly known as the Taylor Law, is Article 14 of the state Civil Service Law, which defines the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York.
The 2005 New York City transit strike, held from December 20 through 22, 2005, was the third strike ever by the Transport Workers Union Local 100 against New York City's Transit Authority and involved between 32,000 and 34,000 strikers.
In 1966, the Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) and Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) called a strike action in New York City after the expiration of their contract with the New York City Transit Authority (TA). It was the first strike against the TA; pre-TWU transit strikes in 1905, 1910, 1916, and 1919 against the then-private transit companies had all failed. There had also been some partial TWU strikes in the 1930s but no citywide actions. The strike led to the passage of the Taylor Law, which redefined the rights and limitations of unions for public employees in New York.
Victor H. Gotbaum was an American labor leader. From 1965 to 1987, he was president of AFSCME District Council 37 (DC37), the largest municipal union in New York City.
District Council 37 is New York City's largest public sector employee union, representing over 150,000 members and 50,000 retirees.
Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is a labor union in the United States. Founded in 1937, the RWDSU represents about 60,000 workers in a wide range of industries, including but not limited to retail, grocery stores, poultry processing, dairy processing, cereal processing, soda bottlers, bakeries, health care, hotels, manufacturing, public sector workers like crossing guards, sanitation, and highway workers, warehouses, building services, and distribution.
Lillian Davis Roberts served from 2002 through 2014 as the executive director of District Council 37 (DC37), the largest municipal union in New York City.
George W. Taylor was a professor of industrial relations at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and is credited with founding the academic field of study known as industrial relations. He served in several capacities in the federal government, most notably as a mediator and arbitrator. During his career, Taylor settled more than 2,000 strikes.
Nathan Paul Feinsinger was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. He mediated and arbitrated a number of strikes, and served as general counsel to the Wisconsin Labor Relations Board and associate general counsel to the National War Labor Board (WLB).
Cyrus S. Ching was a Canadian-American who became an American industrialist, federal civil servant, and noted labor union mediator. He was the first director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) and the Wage Stabilization Board.
Theodore Woodrow Kheel was an American attorney and labor mediator who played a key role in reaching resolutions of long-simmering labor disputes between managements and unions and resulting strikes in New York City and elsewhere in the United States, including the 114-day-long 1962–63 New York City newspaper strike that crippled the city's traditional media.
Bernard Bellush was an American historian and journalist. He taught at the City College of New York.