To All Delegates and Members

The original editorial

A POLICE RAID — ON THE CITY FISC

April 21, 2001 — New York City appears headed for another big hit on its municipal pocketbook — this time, by cops.

Last week, an Albany judge upheld a 1998 law that gives the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) power to arbitrate contract disputes involving New York City cops and firefighters.

PERB can take into account what officers earn in wealthy, suburban districts of the state. And because those districts often pay higher salaries than the city, the pressure will be on Gotham to cough up more dough.

Which might be good for cops.

But it will only further strain a city treasury already facing budget gaps over the next few years as well as a slowing economy, whopping demands for salary hikes from other municipal unions and big-ticket spending proposals from the drunken sailors running for mayor.

To be sure, Judge Bernard J. Malone, Jr., had little choice but to uphold the law.

But it was a bad law to begin with.

In 1967, New York state passed the Taylor Law, which prohibited police officers from striking. In return, cops in the five boroughs got to seek arbitration from local labor boards, including N.Y.C.'s Office of Collective Bargaining.

The system wasn't perfect, but it kept municipal salaries in check and the city budget from exploding.

The '98 law places that arrangement in serious peril.

Think of it as a hand grenade being tossed at the city's budget plans.

Do the cops have a legitimate gripe?

Maybe. The work they do, under normal circumstances, is difficult — and dangerous. Over the past eight years, they've cut crime to remarkable lows — protecting New Yorkers, saving lives and helping turn around the city's economy in the process.

And, for too much of the time, what they've gotten from the public in return is nothing but cop-bashing.

Yet, to compare New York City salaries to those in the suburbs is unfair — and risky to the city's fiscal health.

For one thing, many suburban jurisdictions are simply better situated to shell out more: Their greater wealth gives them more to work with — while, at the same time, they face fewer of the social circumstances that put extraordinary demands on New York City's coffers.

Then there are the jurisdictions that simply ignore budgetary constraints and spend whatever they like — only to pay the price later: Nassau County, teetering on bankruptcy, comes to mind.

New York City already had its encounter with bankruptcy, 25 years ago.

If the city is to avoid another round of that nightmare, or a round of economically crippling tax hikes, its cops — deserving as they might be — will have to understand the city's constraints. And keep their own demands in check.

Pat Lynch's response

NYPD COPS TO CITY: ALL WE WANT IS A FAIR SHAKE

April 25, 2001 — In your editorial, you asked the rhetorical question, "Do the cops have a legitimate gripe?" about the way they've been treated over the past eight years. Your answer was "maybe" ("A Police Raid — on the City Fisc," Editorial, April 21). Ours is a resounding "yes." New York City police officers were largely responsible for our town's economic boom and were rewarded with miserly contracts that included double-zero wage increases while the mayor and City Council were rewarding themselves with 50 percent raises.

Further, recognizing the city's budget limitations, the PBA isn't asking for pay parity with cops in the wealthier suburbs like Nassau and Suffolk, as your editorial suggested, but with the much less prosperous metropolis of Newark.

Newark, unlike the suburbs, has a paid fire and paid sanitation department and a per capita income 42 percent lower than New York City's, yet it still manages to pay its cops 25 percent more than ours are paid.

No wonder New York City is in a crisis where it can't hire new cops while valuable veterans are retiring in droves.

Patrick J. Lynch
PBA President
Manhattan