Airhead? ATU says its ex-president, Al Zullo, may have not had enough brain oxygen when he signed a deal last year.

Last year, after contentious negotiations, the union that represents more than 2,000 TriMet employees agreed to new rules governing restroom and meal breaks for the transit agency's bus drivers and MAX train operators.

Now the union wants to kill the deal and has devised a novel strategy: It claims its own president was brain-damaged when he signed the accord .

To John Charles, president of the Cascade Policy Institute and longtime TriMet critic, the argument is just another example of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757's aggressive—and highly successful—strategy of strong-arming TriMet management. "History shows that the union can do whatever it wants," Charles says. "And customers pay for it through higher costs and reduced service."

In a case now pending before the state labor-relations board, TriMet is fighting ATU's argument that then-President Al Zullo's "brain was not working because he was not getting oxygen to his brain"in June 2005, when he signed an agreement formalizing previously unspecified bathroom breaks. The ATU claims TriMet knowingly duped Zullo, who's now retired, into agreeing to rules he didn't understand.

"The union president had physical ailments that affected his cognitive functioning during the period when...negotiations occurred," says ATU's brief filed with the state board. "His mental condition [was] obvious to those around him."

Under questioning from TriMet attorney Keith Garza, Zullo acknowledged signing the pact. At the time, he testified, he thought the document conferred additional benefits on union members. "I felt that it was all giving to us," Zullo testified. "There was no takeaways in it, as far as I saw." Zullo also acknowledged that he did not immediately inform his executive board of what he had signed. because it was "kind of a rebel bunch."

Current union officials testified that normally, the ATU local's president needs approval from rank-and-file members before signing any agreements that might restrict members' privileges. TriMet argues that this deal simply enshrines current practices, and that the ATU is making the 65-year-old Zullo, who worked as a Portland bus driver for 40 years, into a "sacrificial lamb." "The union produced no medical records establishing his ailments," Garza wrote.

Garza also notes that the ATU's own documents show Zullo was a highly active and effective union boss. The local's website reports that Zullo completed numerous successful negotiations and oversaw the filing of an extraordinary number of complaints on behalf of union members.

In 2005 alone, Zullo oversaw 814 grievances by ATU's 4,100 members, mostly against TriMet. (By comparison, the City of Portland's 4,453 union employees filed just 87 grievances that same year.) Charles argues that the ATU's constant pressure on TriMet in the form of those grievances wins wages and benefits far in excess of what private sector drivers and mechanics earn. ATU spokesman Jason Reynolds says the union is merely doing its job. "They file grievances—and win—because TriMet violates the contract over and over."

Even before oil prices spiked, TriMet pushed through several fare increases and last year increased the payroll tax that provides most of its operating budget. Agency director Fred Hansen recently warned that TriMet could either expand west-side lightrail or extend the streetcar to the east side, but not both.

The administrative law judge hearing the case has yet to decide whether Zullo's alleged brain damage should invalidate the deal he signed.