he PBA is on the road to its fifth binding arbitration in the last six rounds of bargaining. It’s unfortunate, but until the city realizes that it must pay New York City police officers what their counterparts make in comparable departments, we will be forced to seek a contract through a PERB arbitrator.   On Oct. 20, we concluded our third mediation session at PERB.  The following recaps those sessions and the next steps in our efforts to get us a fair contract.

While we approached the mediation seriously, with the hopes of reaching a negotiated agreement, the city did not move from its demand that the PBA accept 3% and 3.15% over the first two years of the agreement, consistent with settlements voluntarily agreed to by other police unions. The city was willing to discuss the possibility of a four-year agreement, but did not offer a specific percentage increase for years 3 and 4.   For our part, we did not reject outright the concept of a 4-year deal. However, we laid out two interests that needed to be addressed for us to consider a 4-year deal:

A 4-year deal must move us substantially toward a market rate of pay. When asked about a wage increase, we emphasized specifically the Port Authority compensation scale.   We also wanted acknowledged the special characteristics of our job, including the training and the tremendous productivity this agency realized through our members working with thousands of fewer police officers. For this component, we suggested special additional terrorism pay, education pay and defibrillator pay.

Not surprisingly in light of past practices, the city was unwilling to offer any alternatives to get us to a market rate. They insisted that the deal be pattern-conforming and they made no effort to address our competitive pay issues.   As a result, PERB mediator Phil Maier has concluded that nothing further can be accomplished in mediation and has communicated his conclusion to PERB.

On another front, while the mediation went on, the PBA filed an improper practice (IP) claim against the city at PERB for bargaining in bad faith.  The purpose for this IP is to shed light on the city’s tactics in settling a contract with weaker bargaining units and then refusing to bargain with us and attempting to stick us with the same sub-standard settlement.  We want to show the PERB arbitrator that this form of bad-faith bargaining doesn’t accomplish a negotiated settlement and only results in third-party arbitrations.

How binding arbitration works:

Our contract will be decided by a three-person panel consisting of one representative each of the city and the PBA plus a so-called neutral arbitrator, selected from an official list of nine arbitrators sent from PERB.

The neutral arbitrator is selected by a process of elimination, which starts with a flip of the coin and continues with each side alternately striking a name until only one is left standing. That selection serves as the chairperson.  The theory is that the last name on the list is the least objectionable to both sides.

hat happens next resembles a trial. Both sides present evidence in the form of documents and expert-witness testimony, after which the chairperson presents a proposal to the other panel members.If both sides reject it, the chairperson goes back to the drawing board. If either side accepts the proposal, it becomes the award, because it takes only two signatures (that of the chairperson who proposed it and the side that accepted it) to seal the deal. This, of course, is an oversimplification but gives you and idea of how it’s supposed to work. It’s never that simple.

We firmly believe we have a solid case with hard evidence to present at the arbitration hearings and are willing to take the risk because the city has refused to negotiate in good faith. The negotiating table has produced nothing but unacceptable offers that would only retard our progress to a salary comparable to what police officers earn in other jurisdictions. We are ready once again to see what binding arbitration will yield.