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September 26, 2003
Razzle Dazzle
Nassau Grass Still Greener
By Richard Steier
It is a measure of how green the collective-bargaining pastures were for Nassau
county cops in the past that even last week’s contract arbitration award
that was meant to symbolize finances wasn’t all that austere.
It’s true that the new pact features 18 months worth of wage freezes,
requires officers to work four additional 12-hour tours at straight time, curtails
the hours for which cops receive night differential and has the effect of reducing
overtime, holiday and differential pay. It also costs cops one of their paid holidays
and eliminates overtime pay for any travel time they incur going to and from extra
shifts that do not immediately precede or follow their regular tours.
An Offer City Cops Couldn’t Refuse
But the gains under the contract – at a time when Nassau’s finances
are so shaky they’re being monitored by an outside authority – are
sufficiently good that it’s hard to imagine any leader of a city police
union passing them up. That is especially true because virtually all of the benefits
that were lost or reduced under the Nassau PBA award still leave those cops better
off in those areas than their NYPD counterparts.
“If I can get that – 21.1 percent compounded over six years –
I’d take that deal right now,” said Captains’ Endowment Association
President John Driscoll Sept. 18. He was speaking a couple of hours after he listened
to Mayor Bloomberg tell the Municipal Labor Committee at its annual conference
in Melville that not only would he grant no raises that weren’t funded by
new efficiencies, but he would seek additional productivity from employees to
offset the city’s rising pension costs.
“I think it’s a good deal for the members, and according to the
county, they got the savings they need,” Mr. Driscoll said.
Lieutenants’ Benevolent Association President Tony Garvey said that even
with the 12-month pay freeze at the start of the deal, “In light of today’s
economy I think it’s an excellent contract. I would like [city Labor Relations
Commissioner] Jim Hanley to make me the same offer; I think we could resolve our
contract very rapidly.”
One Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association official was less enthused, saying
that it was one thing to ridicule the idea that until the arbitration award Nassau
cops counted Flag Day as one of their paid holidays, but quite another to think
they were thrilled about giving it up.
But Mr. Driscoll believed the contract’s concessions were somewhat easier
to swallow given the fact that they involved benefits that few cops in other jurisdictions
enjoy.
In eliminating night differential pay for the period between 11 a.m. and 3:30
p.m., the arbitrators stated, “This time period does not comport with the
generally accepted belief that employees who work late hours which disrupt their
family lives should be compensated for this inconvenience.”
There was a distinct irony to this observation, because one of the panel members,
veteran Long Island police arbitrator Martin Scheinman, had made the 11 a.m. to
noon period eligible for night differential in the last Nassau PBA contract arbitration
six years ago.
A Fig Leaf for Generosity
Those familiar with the way arbitrations get done in Nassau and Suffolk say
there was no reason for Mr. Scheinman to blush; that the extension of the differential
period was very likely something that Nassau County officials from the prior administration
willingly consented to. Unlike in New York City, where greater scrutiny by both
the media and fiscal monitors helps make arbitrations on Long Island have long
been used as a vehicle by which local officials can reward cops for their political
support without having to take direct responsibility for giving away the store.
It finally caught up with the county a few years ago, creating a fiscal crisis
that led to the end of Republican control of both the County Executive’s
seat and the Nassau Legislature. The new County Executive, Tom Souzzi, cited the
spiraling police costs as a prime factor in the financial debacle and vowed to
win a three-years wage freeze to help restore fiscal solvency, prompting Nassau
PBA President Gary DelaRaba to blast him for what he claimed was a scapegoating
of his members.
But anyone wondering how much of a factor police compensation was in Nassau’s
troubles merely had to look at some of the extras provided under Mr. Scheinman’s
1997 award.
In addition to raising salaries by 24 percent (compared to 13 percent for city
cops from a different arbitration panel that same week), Mr. Scheinmen reduced
the number of hours Nassau cops were to be scheduled to work from 2,088 to 1,856.
This not only gave them significantly more time off than NYPD cops, it provided
a healthy boost in fringe benefits by using the shorter work schedule as the basis
for calculating the hourly compensation that determines holiday pay, overtime
and shift differentials, A $60,000 salary previously meant the hourly wage amounted
to $28.73 per hour; the reduced hours meant the differentials were calculated
on a wage of $32.33 per hour.
Nassau cops under that 1997 award also got stipends of $3,400 for special assignment
work, and longevity differential increases of from $500 to $1,750 a year. They
also were permitted to increase the vacation days they could accrue for potential
cash-out at retirement from 54 to 90, and sick days from 494 to 550.
City Cops Envious
Those are the kinds of benefits that have left city cops livid with frustration
that they can’t do as well, but then they’re dealing with a very different
deck of cards.
Even in this case, where the award offers enough savings to Nassau to not be
seen as a covert giveaway, Mr. Driscoll suspects that to some degree the deal
was structured, with both sides helping to shape the final award.
“I believe that probably there were options they could pick and choose
from,” he said. “They agreed on the ingredients; they just didn’t
know what proportion would go into the recipe.”
And even the more costly concessions carried some redeeming features from the
Nassau PBA’s standpoint. The clipping of 41/2 hours from the night differential
period was offset by one hour – from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m. – being added
to the category, and that hour, as well as the period from 3:30 to 7 p.m., will
not be compensated with a 12-percent differential, compared to the old level of
10 percent. By comparison, city cops do not have night differential kick in until
4 p.m., and at 10 percent of salary.
The new standard of 1,985 hours for determining differential and overtime payments
still offers more generous benefits than the 2,088 used by the NYPD. And the four
additional 12-hour tours each Nassau cop will have to work at straight time are
pensionable and even with Flag Day no longer a holiday, still leave them scheduled
to work just 160 shifts a year. (That number drops once vacation days are considered.)
Then factor in a generous boost in longevity payments and a new education differential
that will start at $600 for incumbent officers even if they don’t have the
124 college credits that will be mandated for future hires to receive it.
A Headache for Lynch
Nassau will gain major savings by having the early steps on the pay scale basically
frozen until the last day of the contract, Dec. 31, 2006. At that point, however,
those steps drop off the scale, the new rate for those beginning training in the
Police Academy goes from $23,000 to $34,000, and at the end of a full year of
service they will have their pay jump to over $65,000. Contrast that with the
$54,048 current maximum for Police Officers in the NYPD, and the likelihood that
the next PBA wage contract may not bring veteran cops by the end of 2006 up to
the same pay level as a second-year Nassau officer, and it’s clear what
a headache this “cheap” deal poses for PBA President Pat Lynch.
In his first contract negotiation and the arbitration that followed, Mr. Lynch
didn’t harp on the gap between the city and Nassau the way his predecessors
had. Rather, he tried to make the case for a “market adjustment” by
pointing out how far compensation for city cops had fallen behind those working
in Newark.
City officials countered that there were historic links between compensation
for the PBA and other municipal unions which had already agreed to contract terms.
They cited in particular the contract reached with a uniformed union coalition
that included all the other police unions, and claimed that disrupting those links
would pose recurring problems in future bargaining.
The three-man arbitration panel’s chairman virtually cast aside the PBA’s
compelling comparisons in favor of that argument, except to the extent that he
approved making the 10-percent raises and 1.5 percent in fringe-benefit improvements
effective over 24 months, compared to the 30-month deal for the uniformed coalition.
Small But Key Progress
It represented incremental progress at best for the PBA, but the union’s
members apparently believed it was enough of an accomplishment to reward Mr. Lynch
with a new four-year term this spring.
He wasn’t talking last week about the Nassau PBA deal. Earlier this month
he had opened his own talks with the Bloomberg administration on a new contract,
once again making the argument for bringing his members closer to what officers
in neighboring jurisdictions are paid.
When the Nassau arbitration award was announced, Mr. Suozzi told Newsday that
the wage hike was “higher than I anticipated.” If he truly believed
he could come close to realizing his goal of a three-year wage freeze, he wasn’t
taking full account of the long history of bargaining in the county and the link
to what cops in Suffolk earn.
Mr. Lynch and his members face the opposite dilemma: a tradition of being yoked
to other city unions and an administration well aware that being generous to any
one of them has a drastic ripple effect. In that climate, he could make another
breakthrough and still not match last week’s gains for Nassau cops.
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