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June 30, 2006
Editor's Column: 'Razzle Dazzle'
Coalition's a Round Late
By RICHARD STEIER
There are so many obstacles to the success of the bargaining coalition
announced last week by United Federation of Teachers President Randi
Weingarten and 19 fellow labor leaders that there is a temptation
to say it's an idea whose moment passed 2-1/2 years ago.
That was a time when the municipal unions were all at roughly the
same point on the bargaining map: working under contracts that,
with a couple of exceptions, expired within a year of each other,
and dealing with an unpopular Mayor who had a troubled budget situation.
When Ms. Weingarten sought to present a united front then, however,
she encountered resistance from Patrolmen's Benevolent Association
President Pat Lynch and Uniformed Firefighters' Association President
Steve Cassidy.
The Color of Envy
There has always been a reluctance on the part of police and fire
union leaders to bargain on an equal footing with civilian employees.
Longtime Sergeants' union President Harold Melnick used to put it
this way: "You tell a cop he's getting a 5-percent raise and
a Teacher's getting 5 percent, he won't like that. You tell him
he's getting 4 percent and the Teacher's getting 3, that he'll like."
Add that mentality to the growing restlessness among cops about
how far behind their salaries are compared to their counterparts
in Nassau and Suffolk, and Mr. Lynch concluded he had to shoot the
moon rather than settle for the modest gains that a union coalition
was likely to produce. Mr. Cassidy, banking on the historic parity
relationship between cops and firefighters, figured his best shot
lay in following the PBA's lead. The end result was that District
Council 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts, impelled by her internal
political troubles and the anxiety among her members - among the
poorest-paid in the city work force - about the crush of living
expenses after nearly three years without a pay raise, in April
2004 accepted a contract offer that was cheaper than any of the
other unions could have imagined.
That deal wound up influencing the subsequent bargaining of all
the other municipal unions, as well as the PBA's contract arbitration.
Mr. Lynch and some of his uniformed union supporters have claimed
that his arbitration deal "shattered" the notion that
the DC 37 accord was a binding pattern, arguing that even counting
the 4 percent worth of givebacks suffered by future cops, the deal
provided a net gain of 6 percent over two years, while the first
two years of DC 37's three-year contract gave its members just 3
percent in recurring raises.
But in the process, the PBA deal blew a hole not only in the pay
plan for its future members but for the NYPD career ladder, since
the other police unions are being forced to accept even greater
givebacks affecting future promotees. Ms. Weingarten, who opted
to take smaller raises to keep new members from getting hammered
by a reduction in the UFT pay scale, lamented the damage done by
those who shunned the coalition.
In giving it life last week, however, she placed herself and other
members of the bargaining group in such a maze that even a road
map might not lead them to a satisfactory journey to the other side.
During a press conference at City Hall, she and other union leaders
spoke about bargaining in a manner that protected longtime benefits
for future workers as well as those they already represent, and
about asserting themselves in the name of the middle class that
the union movement in the city has produced over the past 50 years.
History of Undercutting Themselves
But the gains made at the bargaining table by the municipal unions
have also produced a negotiating history that over the past two
decades has consistently revolved around city negotiators outmaneuvering
their union counterparts, in no small measure by playing the unions
off each other.
Mayor Bloomberg, like his recent predecessors, is able to turn
his attention to a single issue: the bottom line for city labor
costs. He didn't need union help to transform his image, fill his
campaign coffers or get out the vote, although the number of converts
he made surely contributed to a landslide re-election victory last
November that would have been unimaginable 18 months earlier.
Nor is he going to stew, as cops do, about disparities in pay between
city titles and comparable ones in other cities. Let the PBA worry
about outdoing the other unions; Mr. Bloomberg's only concern is
keeping down labor costs for everyone, and the easiest way to do
that is to treat everybody the same. Paying less to some employees
would give arbitrators an opening to grant more money to others.
Mr. Bloomberg also doesn't have to worry about philosophical differences
among his budget and labor relations offices wrecking his contract
strategy. Even his Police Commissioner's complaints about the last
PBA contract's impact on recruiting have not prompted a precipitous
attempt to fix the problem; the city's latest offer to the PBA would
pay for a bolstered salary scale by reducing other benefits for
cops.
There is no getting away from how union rivalries and past bitterness
affects bargaining from labor's side of the fence, however.
No Love Lost
That is a big part of the reason that Ms. Roberts brushed off Ms.
Weingarten's entreaty to join the coalition, even though several
of the most vocal critics of her last contract won't be part of
the group. She knows Ms. Weingarten was among those critics, and
Ms. Roberts is both proud and stubborn to a fault. The past criticism
may make her less likely to settle on the cheap this time, but it
also virtually ensured that she would not surrender the prerogative
to negotiate the first contract of the bargaining round, no matter
the pressure and scrutiny that accompanies that responsibility.
Early last week, one aide to Ms. Weingarten described Correction
Officers' Benevolent Association President Norman Seabrook as being
"on the fence" about joining the coalition. By June 22,
he opted to go it alone. Asked what he saw as the biggest disadvantage
to bargaining as part of a group, he replied, "Quite honestly,
nobody wants to get along with each other."
Two rounds back, Mr. Seabrook headed a coalition of uniformed unions
that included everyone except the PBA, and despite some early grousing
about one statement he made to the New York Times, most coalition
members were satisfied with the contract that was produced in the
summer of 2001.
A Uniformed Reluctance
Some uniformed union leaders said last week that their experience
then proved that coalition bargaining worked. But one of them, Lieutenants'
Benevolent Association President Tony Garvey, expressed a common
view when he said he felt most comfortable bargaining in tandem
only with other uniformed unions.
"A uniformed coalition, from my experience, seems to get a
uniformed premium," he said. "We got that in the previous
round of bargaining and during the Koch administration," referring
to the decisions of ex-Mayor Rudy Giuliani during the 2001 talks
and Ed Koch throughout his final decade in office to give uniformed
employees slightly better raises than civilian workers received.
Even without that belief, however, Mr. Garvey acknowledged, "The
stars don't line up right here for me." His concerns start
with the fact that while most coalition members will be seeking
contracts to replace current deals that end sometime in 2007, he
still hasn't negotiated a contract to replace the LBA pact that
expired four years ago.
A Two-Year Void?
Captains' Endowment Association President John Driscoll, whose
old pact ran out Oct. 31, 2003, has a similar dilemma. He could
wind up in arbitration, Mr. Driscoll noted, which would limit the
successor contract to two years unless both he and the city agreed
to accept a longer deal. That presented the prospect of getting
an arbitration award that ran through October 2005 after the Weingarten
coalition reached a deal that would probably begin in 2007, giving
Mr. Driscoll a two-year hole in between to fill in. It's a bit more
trouble than he wants to have to navigate.
Mr. Cassidy was perhaps the most vociferous union critic of the
DC 37 deal, and last month he questioned how useful a coalition
could be if DC 37 was a free agent and therefore at liberty to bargain
its own contract again. Last week he declined comment except to
note that he had begun negotiations on a new deal with Labor Relations
Commissioner Jim Hanley June 20. "We're prepped and ready to
go," the UFA leader said, without regard to what DC 37 or the
coalition may do. "Our intention is to move forward."
Even Booster Hesitates
Aside from Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association President Harry
Nespoli, who will be one of the coalition co-chairs, and Joe Mannion,
another coalition member who heads Sanitation Officers' Association
Local 444 of the Service Employees' International Union, the only
uniformed union leader to unequivocally declare support for the
coalition was Sidney Schwartzbaum, who heads the Assistant Deputy
Wardens'/Deputy Wardens' Association.
"It's the only way to go," he said June 21. "I just
have some major concerns about DC 37 setting a pattern again."
And he predicted that other union leaders representing superior
officers in the Fire, Police and Correction Departments would eventually
sign on, particularly once some outstanding current contracts were
resolved.
When the coalition was announced two days later, however, Mr. Schwartzbaum
was not part of the group. "I'm just mulling the fact that
[almost] no other uniformed unions are on board," he said,
adding that he expected to eventually join.
A Logistical Mess
Looking over each other's shoulder is a big part of the problem
for the unions. The lack of anything resembling uniformity in their
contract situations is another hindrance. As Mr. Hanley noted, some
unions in the coalition negotiate under the jurisdiction of both
the city and the state, others just the city; if they wanted to
go to arbitration, some are contractually required to use the state
process, others the city mechanism. That's before you even consider
the logistical problems caused by the current contracts for Teamsters
Local 237 and Communications Workers of America locals that joined
the coalition having expired last year, 26 or more months before
the current deals for the UFT, the Professional Staff Congress and
the New York State Nurses Association will run out.
Bill Henning, a vice president of Communications Workers of America
Local 1180, said the common bond for coalition members is a weariness
with concessionary contracts in which the unions have forsaken benefits
for future members to "buy" portions of the raises for
those already on the job. Even if the move has short-term political
value for union leaders, it has left a sour taste in the mouths
of those who are now signed on with Ms. Weingarten, the prime holdout
on the "unborn" giveback trail.
'Can't Go Backwards'
"There was a general consensus that we're not looking to go
backwards," Mr. Henning said. "They're united on the fact
that it's time we stopped bargaining from a defensive posture. I
think it starts with putting forward the most-unified group of people
that you can." During her press conference, when asked about
concerns that a new DC 37 contract might hamstring the coalition,
Ms. Weingarten said, "I wouldn't rule out that District Council
37 will ultimately be a part of this coalition."
Afterwards, however, she expressed a more realistic view, saying
that at the very least, the coalition's existence gave DC 37 some
extra bargaining leverage: threatening to join it might prompt the
Mayor to improve his wage offer to win himself a more favorable
deal than the coalition would be willing to accept.
"I don't see it," Mr. Hanley replied when asked about
that theory.
His response wasn't surprising. It's clear, though, that Ms. Weingarten
is trying to thread the needle under conditions where any one of
several scenarios could compromise the bargaining hopes of both
the coalition as a whole and her own union.
UFT's Forced Discipline
Last fall she cobbled together a decent raise for her members without
stomping on her salary scale by agreeing to have members work extended
days - and add several days to their schedules - in return for extra
compensation. Since then, the UFT has adopted two resolutions: one
vowing not to swap time for money for the third consecutive contract,
the other not to continue working if a new deal is not in place
when the old one expires.
That might explain why the coalition has been set up as a six-month
effort to gain a deal that satisfies all its member unions. If any
of the many things that could go wrong occur, the scheduled dissolution
of the collective effort at the end of the year would give Ms. Weingarten
a bit more than nine months to wrestle with the restrictive parameters
imposed by her union on itself.
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