t isn’t glamorous and it isn’t quick, but fighting for our members’ rights through litigation and legislation is very effective. And when you reach the end of the battle, the win is yours and it’s yours forever.

For years, whenever a contract impasse was declared, the binding arbitration process was in the hands of the city’s Office of Labor Relations in the guise of its puppet Board of Collective Bargaining. It was a kangaroo court that never decided in a union’s favor. Back in 1991, the PBA began the fight to take it out of the city’s control, to have all impasses decided by the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). It was a fight that began with legislation in Albany and ended up as a bitter legal battle, with the city fighting tooth and nail to keep control of binding arbitration. A full ten years after the process started, the PBA won the right to go to PERB for binding arbitration. While it was a long and difficult fight, we scored a victory.

Picking one’s battles involves a complex and varied process. Sometimes it starts with a phone call to the PBA office or as a complaint to a delegate. Other times, it’s a swift reaction to a new policy issued by the department or a new interpretation of an old one that results in the PBA unleashing its legal team.

By definition, suing is slow and labor-intensive. There are strategies to develop, discovery to take, legal documents to file and motions to be made. There are delays due to over-crowded courts — and calculated delays frequently made by your adversary in the hopes that you’ll lose interest and drop the entire matter.

And the process of creating or changing a law — the legislative process, in other words — is an equally arduous proposition. Aside from procedural issues, there are always those politicians who want to hold your legislation hostage to get something of theirs passed or some other issue resolved. Again, it’s a frustrating process, but one that eventually brings benefits worth working and fighting for.

One case we think will pay off down the road is the challenge to the Department under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The PBA recently arranged for a law firm to represent our members, charging that the city has violated the FLSA, which establishes minimum wages and regulates the paying of overtime and using compensatory time for leave purposes.

We recently asked Will Aitchison, one of the lead attorneys on the case, to estimate how long the entire process is likely to take. His best guess is three or four years. But if we’re successful, there may be a monetary settlement and a dramatic improvement in our ability to take time off. Again, it will be a long, slow road but we’ll have a great payoff at the end of the process.

As painful as the processes may be, just look at what we’ve achieved through persistence:

PERB: The PBA now has the permanent right to make its binding-arbitration cases decided by PERB instead of the City of New York. While our first PERB decision was not what we desired, it still gave us a contract worth $115 million more than what the other unions received.

Child Care: When the State Legislature passed a law allowing police officers to buy back up to a year of service time for each period of childcare leave taken, the Department said it didn’t apply to officers who started with Transit or Housing before the April, 1995, merger. The PBA filed suit in June 2001 and won that fight in May 2002.

Highest Earned Salary: The PBA is strongly lobbying for a bill that would allow New York City police officers to retire on the highest salary earned in any 12-month period. This bill would help solve the city's well-documented police recruitment and retention crisis by giving our members an incentive that they don't have now to stay on the job. And, in the end, it will save the city money.

Retirement benefits: Former Housing and Transit officers are now permitted to get credit for certain state service as time towards their 20-year retirement. We know of one officer who went to bed with 17 years on the job and woke up with 23 years because this victory allowed him to count prior state service.

CCRB: During the Giuliani administration, the mayor and police commissioner attempted to transfer the prosecution of FADO cases (excessive force, abuse of authority, discourtesy and offensive language) from the department to the CCRB. They also tried to transfer the hearings of those cases from the Department’s Trial Room to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings (OATH). The PBA and other police unions challenged that practice in the courts, which agreed with the PBA that OATH was not authorized to hear any disciplinary case, thus preventing the city’s attempt to civilianize the disciplinary process for certain offenses. While the appellate court ruled that the CCRB could prosecute in the Trail Room, budgetary constraints forced the CCRB to announce that it will not implement the Guiliani plan to take on the prosecutorial function. The PBA is reviewing the decision and considering an appeal. As it is with most litigation, this battle may have a long future, but one in which we hope to prevail.