BIG DOG BARKS AT THE PACK

Razzle Dazzle
Big Dog Barks At the Pack

By RICHARD STEIER

It takes a special kind of chutzpah to reach contract terms that put the rest of your uniformed union colleagues at a disadvantage, then lash out at them when their way of dealing with the problem is not to your liking.

Pat Lynch has that quality.

The president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association recently posted on his Web site a treatise in which he assailed the Detectives' Endowment Association and the Lieutenants' Benevolent Association for contemplating contracts that are two years longer than Mr. Lynch's most recent deal. He accused them of being "house unions" that never stand up to the Bloomberg administration or the NYPD, and branded them cheapskates for not footing part of the PBA's costs in a wage arbitration that he said improved their bargaining position.

'Screwed Us and Blamed Us'

DEA President Mike Palladino took exception. The essence of Mr. Lynch's message, he said in a Feb. 22 phone interview, was, "Let me screw you, and then I'll blame you, and then I'll ask you to pay for it."

If that assessment seemed a bit harsh, it was understandable. Detective Palladino was speaking on the day when ballots were going out to the DEA's 6,000 members on a tentative four-year contract, a second try at closing the deal after the initial one was voted down by 111 votes late last year.

BATTLE OF THE BADGE: Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch (left), responding to what he said was criticism of his union's contract by other police union leaders, accused the heads of the Lieutenants' and Detectives' unions of lacking a coherent bargaining strategy other than being docile toward the Bloomberg administration. Captains' Endowment Association President John Driscoll (right) said Mr. Lynch's barbs were off target, adding, 'If he really wants to control everybody's destiny, then he should lead a police/fire coalition.' Mr. Lynch's dissertation, labeled a "special pullout" on the PBA's Web site, accompanied a longer analysis of city contract bargaining that represented his January message to his rank and file. Both missives traveled below the radar until two weeks ago, when according to Mr. Palladino some of his members told him they had been approached by PBA delegates trying to persuade them to veto the latest agreement with the city.

Titled "A Public Debate," with the subtitle of, "The PBA's Bargaining Philosophy and Other Police Unions," Mr. Lynch began the shorter analysis by stating that his arbitration award had been subjected to public criticism by "some police union officials, and others who have been part of the uniform[ed] unions' failed bargaining strategy of the 1990s." He said he wanted to point out "the devastating effects [that strategy] has had on police officers in New York City."

Mr. Lynch contended that while his union bargained from the standpoint that city cops deserved to be as well-compensated as officers in any other jurisdiction in the nation, other police unions, with the exception of the Sergeants' Benevolent Association - which agreed to a two-year contract that replicated the key economic gains of the PBA deal - believed in "bargaining by cover," meaning they didn't have to set their sights above ensuring that they did no worse than any other municipal union.

"It is all about being re-elected and not about doing what is best for your members," Mr. Lynch said. "In short, that discredited theory of bargaining is largely responsible for the hole we find ourselves in now."

If you ask the union leaders Mr. Lynch was pointing at - Mr. Palladino and the LBA's Tony Garvey - and a few others he didn't allude to, the hole they find themselves in is primarily the result of Mr. Lynch's decision during the arbitration to get a deal that rewarded incumbent cops at the expense of future hires.

Put Colleagues Under the Gun

This forced the other uniformed union leaders to endure the pressure of their rank and files to match the 5-percent annual raises the PBA won and therefore to reduce the pay scale for those who would be entering their ranks in the future. The task was even more unhappy for them because the attrition rates for their job titles are lower - sometimes significantly so - than among Police Officers, leading the Bloomberg administration to demand additional concessions from them to even out the city's costs.

In his larger newsletter, Mr. Lynch detailed the added concessions, at times gloating over the fact that other unions had to give up more to match the PBA's gains in arbitration. Written before the DEA's revised deal, the newsletter stated that had that proposal been ratified, "The hourly pay for entry-level detectives would have been less than Police Officers at basic max because Police Officers will work fewer hours."

Some PBA members might find this news cheering, but those who harbor ambitions of being upgraded to Detective might not be popping Champagne corks at the prospect of taking what amounted to a pay cut if they moved up. Those aspiring to civil service promotions might hesitate to buy a round for the house once they realize that the stretching of the pay scale that the PBA agreed to for future hires under the arbitration could wind up biting incumbent cops three times if they advanced all the way to Captain.

Parity Issue Remains

They might be more heartened by Mr. Lynch's notation that because the Correction Officers' Benevolent Association for the second straight bargaining round had a longer contract term in which it was getting the same raises for its members as the PBA, "... correction officers are now 9 months behind the Police Officers in their wage increases, effectively altering what the City has described as the long-term and historic parity relationship between Police Officers and correction officers."

That does nothing, however, to disturb the parity relationship of much greater duration between cops and Firefighters. The Uniformed Firefighters' Association, as part of its attempt to match the PBA raises, agreed to a 50-month contract that during the final 26 months provides additional raises of 3 percent and 3.15 percent.

That deal, which was overwhelmingly ratified, has a similar structure to the DEA deal now being voted on. This raises the question of what PBA officials could possibly accomplish if Detectives torpedo a tentative contract for the second time, since it would not undo the UFA deal that seems to have decided Police Officers' bargaining fate for the 26-month period that begins Aug. 1, 2004.

Mr. Garvey acknowledged as much in an interview with this newspaper last year when he said he would become serious about negotiating a four-year contract once the UFA contract was ratified, a step he predicted would "cement the next round of bargaining."

Harsh Interpretation

"Why would a police union leader make that statement?" Mr. Lynch asked in the PBA pullout. "Has he surrendered his bargaining certificate?" He suggested that Mr. Garvey was "seeking to lay the blame off to another union for his own contract."

This was hardly the only time he questioned the political courage of some of his police union colleagues. He accused the leaders of the DEA and LBA of taking a nonaggression policy toward top city officials in return for an assurance that they would get the same contract terms as civilian-employee unions.

"Have you ever heard them say the pay of Detectives or Lieutenants is not acceptable?" Mr. Lynch's pullout asked. "No. Did they take issue with the Mayor's plan to spend taxpayer money - money that could be used to fund our inadequate salaries - on a West Side stadium? No. In fact, the DEA endorsed the stadium. So, for the privilege of obtaining exactly what the civilians get and what management offers, you must surrender your right to act like a union."

Detective Palladino responded that most labor leaders believe they can accomplish more for their rank and files through a good working relationship with management than with constant confrontation.

'PBA Closes Doors'

"That's what unions are supposed to do: communicate and open up doors for their members," he said. The PBA, he asserted, took a different tack: "Their style is to berate, and that's why there are no doors open to them."

Captains' Endowment Association President John Driscoll said that the talk within the NYPD was that Mr. Lynch and his attorneys believe that if no police union deal is in place when they seek yet another contract arbitration, they can break the chains of police/fire parity and improve upon the third and fourth years of the agreements made by the UFA and the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association.

Mr. Driscoll is among the skeptics. "I don't think there's any arbitrator on this planet who's going to upset 120 years of parity between police and fire," he said.

One of the holes in Mr. Lynch's bargaining analysis lies in his citing former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg's role on a 1968 arbitration panel that "found clearly and unequivocally that New York City police officers should be among the highest-paid police officers in the country."

Parity 'Historic Practice'

As Detective Palladino pointed out, that panel also stated, "Parity in compensation between firemen and patrolmen has been a historic practice for 80 years. We find realistically that it should be maintained."

A similar inconsistency fuels Mr. Lynch's claim in his newsletter that 16 statements made by the chairman of last year's arbitration panel, Eric Schmertz, about why Police Officers deserve significantly better salaries and should not be yoked to other municipal unions, would serve "as a starting point in this round of bargaining."

Left unsaid is that other parts of Mr. Schmertz's ruling so infuriated and frustrated the PBA that its representative on the arbitration panel devoted 39 pages to a dissenting opinion questioning the panel chairman's logic.

Much of the heat Mr. Lynch has caught from his fellow uniformed union leaders over the eight months since the arbitration award was rendered resulted from assurances they said he had given that he would not seek to negotiate an attrition-based contract that would make it difficult for them to win the same benefits unless they agreed to more-painful givebacks. The PBA leader has said his pledge applied to a negotiating situation and that arbitration placed the terms in an arena beyond his control.

Other police union leaders don't buy it. "We were sitting on the sidelines at their request," Mr. Palladino said, predicated on the belief that Mr. Lynch would not consent to an attrition-based deal. "Once there were concessions on the table, he did his best to lay them all on the unborn."

Feeling Tabloid Heat?

Mr. Driscoll surmised that Mr. Lynch was attempting to counter some of the negative publicity he's gotten in the tabloids since the January police class became the first group of cops subjected to a starting pay that is $15,000 lower than was received by recruits who joined the NYPD last July. While the union has pointed the finger at the Bloomberg administration, editorial writers have accepted the Mayor's argument that the union was at least an equal partner in the structure of the arbitration award.

Labor Relations Commissioner Jim Hanley last week reiterated that the city would have preferred a different concession package under which savings would have been produced by requiring new cops to work additional days and receive less holiday pay and a reduced night differential, rather than the sharp cut in both starting salary and the pay scale for them during their first five years on the job.

In his newsletter, Mr. Lynch warned his members of a current city proposal that "there shall be a new salary schedule for Police Officers that will more appropriately reflect ratios between basic maximum salary and Sixth Grade, to be funded through increased productivity."

'Charge Us for Repairs'

The PBA leader said city officials had indicated "a desire to compress the steps of the salary schedule and it is also clear that they are again looking to fund any future wage increases through productivity savings. In other words, they need to fix the front end of the salary schedule, which they pushed the arbitrator to change in the last arbitration, and they want to charge us for it."

Mr. Hanley said that characterization misrepresented the city proposal, but he would not elaborate, saying, "We prefer to talk about it at the bargaining table."

He said of PBA officials' attempt to derail the tentative DEA contract on the grounds that Detectives could avoid some of its more painful aspects if they waited for the PBA to complete its next negotiation, "They're almost like the kid that kills both of his parents and then throws himself on the mercy of the court on the grounds that he's an orphan."

Detective Palladino said the problems created by the PBA arbitration award gave him ample reason to seek a contract that was twice as long in duration rather than let the larger police union control his fate again. "I've been around the city the last three weeks, and I've explained to our members why we want years 3 and 4," he said.

Raises' Costs in Line

Mr. Lynch scoffed at the raises of 3 and 3.15 percent in those two years, saying they seemed unlikely to keep pace with the rate of inflation. One gauge those giveback-free hikes do measure up to, however, is the last PBA contract. Once the givebacks for new hires are figured in, the total value of the Police Officer deal drops by 4.24 percent, from the 10.25 percent in raises that incumbent cops received to the 6.01 percent that is the city's true cost, based on an 11-year model that is traditionally used for contracts.

That, Captain Driscoll said, casts a completely different light on the PBA award. In contrast to Mr. Lynch's previous arbitration case in 2002, which produced compensation increases of 11.5 percent over two years with no givebacks, last year's award looks solid only because the raises were funded on the backs of the unborn. Even the award four years ago represented only a small - if nonetheless significant - improvement on what was negotiated at the bargaining table by the Uniformed Forces Coalition, which got the same pay hikes but stretched over 21/2 years.

"I think they're under a lot of heat," Mr. Driscoll said of Mr. Lynch and his board, "so he's trying to solidify his position with the members and justify the $15 or $20 million he spent on the last two arbitrations."

Golden Fleece of PERB

For years, past PBA presidents had promised their rank and files that they could deliver the kind of pay hikes won by cops on Long Island if the state would approve a bill allowing them to bring arbitration cases before the Public Employment Relations Board. They contended that PERB would offer a fairer venue than the city Board of Collective Bargaining, claiming that under its rules cops would be compared to other cops rather than to other municipal employees.

There were reasons to doubt these forecasts, however, foremost among them arbitration cases involving unions from the United Federation of Teachers to the old Transit Police Benevolent Association that did not provide pay raises that exceeded the basic parameters of other city contracts.

The generous arbitration awards in Nassau and Suffolk, Mr. Driscoll noted, were preordained by those counties' political leaders, "who made the deals but let the arbitrators take the blame for them. The Nassau and Suffolk County PBAs are the big dogs out there - they're raising all this money and getting politicians elected." Because most of the Fire Departments on Long Island are voluntary, there is no parity relationship to restrain awards to the cops.

The PERB bill did promise a mine that was not filled with fool's gold to two groups, however: the union lobbyists who pressed Albany to pass it, and the consultants and labor lawyers who would be paid extra money for every contract that wound up in arbitration.

Crooked Point Men

At the time that the PBA began pressing for the PERB bill, all of those functions were handled by three men: Richie Hartman, the union's negotiator throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and Jim Lysaght and Peter Kramer, whose firm was the PBA's primary counsel as well as its Albany lobbyist. All three men in 1998 were convicted in a Federal racketeering case for having paid kickbacks to officials of the Transit PBA in return for greatly inflating their fees, primarily through a legal services program that members never actually used.

Their being bounced from their PBA posts and sent to prison did not, however, alter the essential consequences of the PERB bill's subsequent enactment into law. The two arbitrations before PERB since Mr. Lynch took office have reaped greater benefits for the union's lawyers and outside negotiators than for its members.

Mr. Driscoll is among those who have doubts that the outcome will be different if the PBA goes to arbitration again this round. He said he believes the DEA contract allows Mr. Lynch and his advisers to begin building a justification defense. "Then," the Captains' union president said, "if he goes into arbitration and he fails, he can blame the DEA. Or the LBA, or the CEA."

Predicts Deal Will Fly

He predicted the PBA criticism of the DEA's bargaining approach would not affect the ratification vote. The primary objections to the previous Detective accord - that it stretched the pay scale for incumbents as well as future promotees, and allowed one group of Detectives to maintain the same work schedules while the majority of those in the title had their tours extended by at least 15 minutes daily - were all addressed by Mr. Palladino in the recent talks.

"I think this one is going to pass easily," Mr. Driscoll said. "He's had more time to sell it and he's taken away the stretch-out for the 1st and 2nd-graders and everybody's gotta work more minutes."

Mr. Palladino said he was cautiously optimistic, noting that his members shared his ability to sense when someone was trying to throw them off the scent by handing them a line. "I've been on this job long enough to know when people are honest and sincere and when I'm being jerked around," he said regarding Mr. Lynch's entreaties. "I think in this case I'm being jerked around."