[1][2] Protests occurred in most of the 19 colleges in the City University of New York (CUNY) system in the aftermath of NYC's “Big MAC” financial crisis of the mid-1970s.
The 2005 New York City transit strike actually began on December 19, 2005, at two private bus companies (Jamaica Buses Incorporated and Triboro Coach Corporation)[7] providing public transportation whose employees were also members of TWU Local 100.
TWU Local 100 took the position that these pension changes were therefore not a mandatory subject of bargaining, and that it was illegal to attempt to include it in the MTA’s last and final offer.
Prior to going on strike, TWU Local 100 sought an injunction barring the MTA from including its pension demand as its "last and final offer".
The 2005 New York City transit strike was called off on December 22, 2005, following the signing of an agreement[12][13] between the TWU Local 100 and the MTA, which dropped its demand for pension changes.
The MTA agreed to refund $131.7 million in pension payments to its employees, to a 10.5% wage increase over 3 years and to recognize Martin Luther King day as a paid holiday.
At an April 2006 hearing before the NYS Supreme Court Roger Toussaint was issued a 10-day jail sentence, the union was fined $2.5M and its rights to automatic membership dues was ordered forfeited beginning June 2007.
Toussaint's activism at the MTA / NYCT began with the start of his employment as a car cleaner and continued to the Track Department where he became a union division Chairperson (1995 to 2000).
Prior to running for any office, along with a handful of other trackworkers, he started a newsletter called “On Track” which both criticized the NYCT’s treatment of its employees and the union’s representation on their behalf.
His case became the subject of loud protests outside Transit Authority offices in Brooklyn and Toussaint a poster child of employer abuse and alleged union collusion.