April 27, 2004

Mayor Opposes Convention Rally, and Officials Block Another

By STEVEN GREENHOUSE

hree of New York's most powerful unions - the police, the firefighters and the teachers - argued vigorously last week that the modest raises contained in District Council 37's deal with the city should in no way set a pattern for their members.

The three unions asserted that the wage increases promised District Council 37 - 5 percent over three years, with the possibility of an additional 1 percent - should not apply to them because it would further hamper the city in its already difficult effort to attract teachers, police officers and firefighters.

But in what is shaping up as a major dispute, the Bloomberg administration insists that the District Council 37 accord should set a pattern for those - and other - municipal unions. City Hall officials say the wage levels in that agreement should be a model, and so should the labor savings accepted by District Council 37, the city's largest municipal union, with 121,000 members, including social workers, zookeepers, architects, clerical workers and school cafeteria aides.

After long asserting that municipal unions should agree to productivity measures to help pay for any raises, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg trumpeted the District Council 37 agreement because it includes some savings - reduced vacation days and sick days for new workers and 15 percent lower starting salaries for new workers in their first two years. After two years, their salaries rise to those of earlier hires.

"The D.C. 37 agreement clearly stands for the proposition that productivity is an important element for bargaining prospectively," said the city's labor commissioner, James F. Hanley. "It does set the overall parameters for this round of bargaining."

But in recent days, the police, firefighters and teachers have strained to make the case that that deal should not serve as a template.

"I'm sure that deal solved the problems for D.C. 37, but it doesn't come close to solving the problems we have in the N.Y.P.D.," said Patrick J. Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "We need to start being paid like police professionals across the country because right now we're having severe problems recruiting and retaining police officers."

The president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, Stephen J. Cassidy, said the size of the raise awarded to District Council 37 was flatly unacceptable to his union.

"It's my belief that firefighters and police officers are different than the rest of the municipal work force and need to be compensated appropriately," he said. "The offer on the table is not acceptable to firefighters. It doesn't reflect the contribution they make. Firefighters have the most dangerous job in America, and this is when New York City remains the No. 1 target for terrorists."

Mr. Hanley said the city gave District Council 37 as large a raise as it could afford. He added that other unions should not expect anything higher, although Mayor Bloomberg has repeatedly told union leaders that the greater the money-saving productivity measures they agree to, the greater the raises the city will offer.

"I think the underlying cost of the D.C. 37 contract, the level of the raises, makes sense to apply to the other unions," said Diana Fortuna, president of the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-backed research group. "With a $3.8 billion budget gap in 2006, the city is under an enormous amount of fiscal pressure. It's already raised taxes very significantly, and it needs to get its costs under control."

The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten, questioned the wisdom of the city's insistence on using the District Council 37 contract as a pattern.

"Pattern bargaining has suppressed the ability to have competitive wages in several important areas," she said. "The question is, How do we attract and retain the best and the brightest teachers for all children?"

She asserted that the 5 percent raise in the District Council 37 contract would not raise teacher salaries nearly enough to bridge the gap with suburban districts whose higher salaries have wooed away many city teachers. She said it would be ludicrous for Mr. Bloomberg to propose that the teachers agree to a 15 percent lower starting salary, as District Council 37 did, when the city faces such huge difficulties attracting teachers.

City officials say other union contracts need not be exact copies of the District Council 37 agreement, suggesting that as a money-saving measure the teachers agree to eliminate sabbaticals instead of agreeing to lower starting salaries.

Joshua Freeman, a labor historian at the City University Graduate Center, said the District Council 37 deal would inevitably serve as a basic model. But he added: "The teachers are clearly in a stronger bargaining position than the other unions because the mayor has staked his re-election on improving the schools. They're the union that has the best case that they need an exemption from the D.C. 37 pattern."

The teachers and the police say their negotiations are at a standstill, so they have asked for a state arbitration panel to recommend a contract for them. But City Hall asserts that an impasse has not been reached, and city officials have not agreed that arbitration is necessary.

Some union leaders acknowledged that Mr. Bloomberg obtained a big victory in the District Council 37 deal because any arbitration panel is likely to weigh the low raises in that deal as a possible model. Many other union leaders say they were hoping that District Council 37 would delay a deal so that the contract reached by the largest union of state workers, the Civil Service Employees Association, calling for an 11 percent raise over four years, would serve as the model for any arbitration panel.

Many union leaders said District Council 37 could have received large raises if it had waited longer because City Hall would have been eager for a deal to avoid having the state contract serve as an arbitration.

Speaking about District Council 37, one union leader who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, "They didn't understand the leverage they had."

District Council 37's chief negotiator, Dennis Sullivan, said other unions should not criticize his because they failed to grasp the bargaining dynamics and the tough stance Mr. Bloomberg had taken.

The labor commissioner, Mr. Hanley, said, "D.C. 37 has some of the best negotiating people in the business, and they traditionally have had the courage to address their issues at the bargaining, while others have found solace in sitting back, doing nothing and cursing the darkness."