Attrition Bargaining's Pitfalls

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly in recent days has again lamented the impact that he believes the reduced starting salary for new cops is having on recruitment, pointing to the high recent dropout rate in the Police Academy as proof.

What received less media attention were his comments a couple of weeks ago about a second consequence of the June 2005 arbitration award for the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. Those pertained to the fact that because there is a higher turnover rate at the entry level than for supervisory titles in the NYPD, the city has required the unions representing the ranks of Sergeant and above to make greater concessions to get the same two 5-percent wage hikes given to Police Officers under that award.

"It just doesn't make sense to take a pattern like that and try to impose it on the other ranks; you have to have more flexibility," he told reporters following a Dec. 26 graduation ceremony for the latest wave of NYPD rookies.

In fact, it makes fiscal sense for the city, since getting those concessions is the one way to even out the costs of the contracts. The lower turnover rate in the higher ranks means a lesser savings from having new members starting out on a reduced pay scale each year.

What Mr. Kelly was alluding to, though, is that the fiscal savings for the city has the effect of making promotions less attractive. A new Sergeant or Detective is usually going from the top step on the pay scale for Police Officer to the bottom one for the new rank, and so the prestige is not accompanied by a significant gain in pay.

This kind of attrition-based bargaining also has the effect of punishing unions that represent more stable ranks and rewarding those whose member turnover is highest. This, too, makes fiscal sense but none whatsoever from an organizational standpoint.

One problem the PBA has had in its numerous arbitrations during the past 15 years is making the case that it should not be bound by more than a century of salary parity with the Uniformed Firefighters' Association. City negotiators have convinced arbitrators that the financial problems that were created when the salary relationship between police and fire supervisors was briefly disrupted in the late 1960s makes it imperative not to break parity again.

The headaches caused by attrition-based bargaining - both in the 2005 PBA award and a 1988 contract with that union - should make city officials in the future just as firmly committed not to let the siren song of big concessionary savings tempt them to go down that road again, whether at the bargaining table or in arbitration.