The Transport Workers Union (TWU) local 100, which represents most Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) union workers in the city, has launched a “no contract, no peace” effort to push the MTA into dropping its lawsuit against the state’s recent contract award, which state arbitrators decided in favor of the TWU.

The union also wants to defeat Mayor Bloomberg, and vigorously supports challenger Bill Thompson, the city’s comptroller. Thompson marched “the length” of a recent Brooklyn parade “arm-in-arm” with the union’s leadership, according to the TWU, along with Gov. Paterson, who, behind-the-scenes, personally orchestrated the generous raises in the bad contract that’s now under dispute, and comptroller candidate John Liu, who won his run-off election yesterday with heavy multi-union support, including that of the TWU.

To achieve these ends, yesterday evening, the TWU held a well-attended rally outside MTA world headquarters at 347 Madison Ave.

The union held a smaller picket last week, to which Thompson showed up to do some handshaking (click on the last thumbnail; Thompson does not seem to have photos of TWU events on his own campaign website, although he does mention the TWU endorsement).

The even bigger “day of outrage” is October 14, when the TWU plans “transit wide protests” to “give them a taste of hell.”

New MTA chief Jay Walder starts next week, a week before the day of outrage. Walder will face a big temptation: to kill the lawsuit, with some of sort of statement that he just can’t personally assess the merits of the details of the contract, in their context, because it happened long before his time. Paterson’s support of the TWU exacerbates this temptation.

This might buy labor “peace,” in the TWU’s words, but at a huge cost to taxpayers and to Walder’s desire to put more money into the system itself.