UFT's Winner: 7% Pact Comes 11 Months Early;
$750 Cash Payment, $1,000 Longevity Among Benefits

By RICHARD STEIER

The United Federation of Teachers was able to negotiate last week's two-year, 19-day contract providing members with 7-percent raises, a $750 cash payment and a $1,000 longevity differential for those with five years on the job even while it was publicly bargaining as part of a coalition of more than a dozen municipal unions.

Mayor's Office Photo/Spencer T. Tucker REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL: An early contract deal between the city and the United Federation of Teachers left Mayor Bloomberg and UFT President Randi Weingarten fighting to control their merriment, along with Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley (over Mayor's left shoulder). Even Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein, to Mayor's right, who reportedly tried to torpedo the deal, had trouble suppressing a grin when it was announced.

In making the separate deal, which is strongly tied to the July contract terms reached by District Council 37 but with several key variations, UFT president Randi Weingarten may have paved the way for her bargaining partners to reach similar agreements in the coming months.

Coalition's Drawbacks

Jurisdictional issues - for example, one key coalition member, the Professional Staff Congress, has to deal with state officials and the City University of New York - posed logistical problems that seemed to have made it impossible for the coalition to negotiate a deal with the Bloomberg administration.

Ms. Weingarten said last week that she kept key coalition members abreast of the progress in her private talks with the city, but those discussions occurred away from public scrutiny, and it came as something of a shock when, a few days before the Election Eve deal was actually reached, word surfaced that an agreement was close.

The pay raises of 2 and 5 percent that the UFT pact provides will raise starting pay for Teachers from the current $42,512 to $45,530 within 18 months, and maximum pay will go from $93,416 to $100,049 within that time. Mayor Bloomberg noted that during his five years in office he has raised Teachers' salaries by slightly more than 40 percent, with a significant portion of that increase predicated on UFT members agreeing to extend their workdays under the two previous contracts.

Klein Not Happy

What was particularly remarkable about this accord was that it came more than 11 months in advance of the expiration of the current UFT contract, and was reached over what several parties said was the strenuous objection of Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein. The lack of any work-rule changes or other union concessions under this deal was said to have incensed him.

A spokesman for the Chancellor did not return calls on the matter.

Labor Relations Commissioner James F. Hanley, in a phone interview Nov. 9, explained why the early settlement made sense for both sides, while noting that the DC 37 deal that served as a pattern also contained no givebacks.

"It was a home run for the Mayor because it gives him stability on the budget and on education issues," he said. "It was a home run for Randi because she's able to get a contract in place without any givebacks."

Ms. Weingarten said the lack of concessions in the DC 37 deal - a matter her members had made a priority along with getting a timely settlement after years in which agreements were reached well after the expiration of old contracts - made this one instance in which she was willing to embrace the concept of pattern bargaining.

Helps Cement Alliance

While there was immediate speculation that the deal was spurred by an understanding that she would assist the Mayor in lobbying Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer on matters ranging from additional school aid that will emerge from the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case to the extension of mayoral control over the school system, she maintained neither of those issues came up during the negotiations.

On the other hand, she acknowledged, the early contract - which figures to assist her when she runs for re-election next spring - was likely to pay dividends for the Mayor in several areas. It removes the tensions that could have built early in the next school year, when the current UFT deal was set to expire Oct. 12, since the union had already stated that it would not allow the deadline to pass without a new pact in place. "Doing something like this gives the city a potential partner in fighting for CFE funds, for example," Ms. Weingarten said. "It could usher in a better climate for the rest of the Mayor's term in working together on teaching and learning."

DC 37's 32-month contract this summer began with a 3.15 percent pay raise that was consistent with the final year of the current UFT pact. The new UFT deal essentially conforms to the terms under the last 19 months of the DC 37 agreement, although money has been moved around and there are differences in several key components.

Pensionable Bonus

The latter part of the DC 37 deal featured a 2-percent raise followed by a 4-percent pay hike six months later. UFT members, assuming they ratify the terms, will get the 2-percent raise on the first day of the new contract, Oct. 13, 2007, and a 5-percent raise slightly more than seven months after that. The longer duration of the UFT pact compared to the similar portion of DC 37's deal accounts for the extra 1-percent raise.

There will also be a $750 cash payment to members effective Jan. 1, 2007. That will not be rolled into base salary, but for those who retire within three years of that date, the money will be included in calculating their pension allowances.

A new longevity payment of $1,000 triggered by five years of service will take effect on May 19, 2008, the same day that the 5-percent pay hike kicks in. This benefit was negotiated by the UFT in lieu of the .34 percent "equity money" that DC 37 received to adjust salaries in key titles.

Consistent with the DC 37 deal, there will also be a two-pronged increase in city welfare fund contributions. On Oct. 13, 2007, the Bloomberg administration will increase by $100 its annual per-member contribution to the UFT fund, and on May 1, 2008 it will make a one-time per-member payment of $166.67. The UFT also negotiated a $35 per-member annual increase in welfare fund contributions effective Oct. 21, 2009 that among other things will cap active members' co-pays for prescription drugs at $1,000 a year per family.

More Pay for Coaches

The deal also will provide an increase in the uniform allowance for Supervisors of School Safety, add 12 paid days to the maximum per-session work for those coaching and supervising athletic teams and other extra-curricular activities, and create a supplementary peer intervention program in which independent instructors from outside the system will work with struggling Teachers.

The agreement figures to accelerate negotiations for other civilian unions that had been bargaining as part of the municipal coalition, with Mr. Hanley noting that several labor leaders had already contacted him about deals matching the UFT's.

Ms. Weingarten said that although the coalition had a bargaining session with the city set for Nov. 14, it had become apparent by the time it presented its demands a month ago that the jurisdictional issues previously cited by Mr. Hanley would make a group deal virtually impossible to reach. She said her union and the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association were subsequently designated as "lead locals" to try to negotiate deals that could then be the benchmark for the other coalition members. (Even before the summer was over, several original members of the bargaining group had defected to negotiate their own deals based on the DC 37 terms.)

May Not Sway Holdouts

It remains to be seen whether the UFT deal will place any additional pressure on two unions - the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association and the Council of School Supervisors and Administrators - which are working under long-expired contracts and have had acrimonious relations with the Bloomberg administration. The Mayor several times in recent weeks - including during last week's press conference on the UFT deal - has taken shots at those unions for what he regards as their intransigence.

The CSA is working under a contract that expired July 1, 2003, and the PBA's last deal, although it was not issued by an arbitrator until June 2005, actually expired Aug. 1, 2004. Both unions are about to ask a third party to play a key role in determining a pay award: the CSA through a nonbinding fact-finding process; the PBA in binding arbitration, a route it is taking for the fifth time in the last six bargaining rounds.

A spokesman for PBA President Patrick J. Lynch, asked whether the UFT deal would have any effect on his bargaining position, replied, "Pat doesn't want to comment on another union's contract." Mr. Lynch subsequently said in a statement that his union is "seeking to reach a level of pay ... that is comparable to that of other police departments in the metropolitan area."

Adds to CSA Frustration

CSA President Jill Levy sent a letter to her members that began, "I know how upset and frustrated you are today with the announcement of a new UFT contract. There is nothing I can say to you that will minimize your sense of rejection and disrespect from the Chancellor and the Mayor."

Ms. Weingarten, asked whether she believed the Mayor was willing to reach an early agreement with her as a way of increasing the pressure on the CSA and PBA to return to the bargaining table, said of city officials, "If they had other strategies [along those lines], they were not communicated to me."

But in an allusion to the harsh criticisms by leaders of those two unions of the Mayor's treatment of them in bargaining - as well as her own past skirmishes with Mr. Bloomberg - Ms. Weingarten said, "If you can engage the city in a good-faith way, it's better to do it at the table than publicly."