Letters to the Editor
Editorial Proves PBA's Point

To the Editor:

The Chief-Leader strikes out again. Its editorial response to the first installment of "Setting the Record Straight," the paid-ad column that we intend to run monthly in this newspaper (Feb. 9 issue), gives further evidence of the pro-management bias that led us to begin running the column in the first place.

After indulging in a few gratuitous ad hominem attacks, the editorial proceeds to ignore all substantive and important issues - like why New York City police officers are paid so miserly a salary, for example - and resumes its defense of Labor Commissioner James Hanley's positions and of the management puppet agency, the city Office of Collective Bargaining.

What is so "unassailably logical" about Hanley's claim that our objection to two biased arbitrators was a politically-motivated delaying tactic anyway? No matter how many unnamed "several union leaders" or "other city officials" the editorial cited, it would have been a giant disservice to our members if we had accepted that proposed list of "neutral" arbitrators without objecting. Especially when, all so-called denials aside, PERB officials had announced the stipulation that no arbitrators who had ruled in previous PBA arbitrations would be included - and now here were two who had not only participated before but had "awarded" the PBA zeros. It would have been unassailably illogical for this union - which has a long and uninterrupted record of strongly challenging unfairness to our members - not to object.

As for The Chief-Leader's indignant observation that we have attacked the credibility of OCB, all I can say is, how shocking. That agency has had zero credibility with police officers and with all those who bring cases before it for a long time now, and its recent decisions have done nothing to dispel that. In its March 1998 report to Mayor Giuliani, the Task Force on New York City Police/Community Relations stated: "Responsible people view NYC's arbitration process as a joke (emphasis added). Designed to help the unions, the NYC Arbitration Board - part of the NYC Office of Collective Bargaining - is a stacked deck (emphasis added). The head of the board is appointed by the Mayor and, of the 27 cases brought before it, the board has voted in favor of the City 27 to 0. The only alternative for police officers is to strike, but that is prohibited by law." The board's impartiality has improved not one iota since then.

As for the claim that we have attacked the credibility of PERB, we challenge The Chief-Leader to cite one instance of that. In fact, we have been defending PERB by insisting that its rules be followed and that the process go forward upon Governor Spitzer's appointment of a PERB board and the selection of an impartial arbitrator.

The Chief-Leader should examine its journalistic conscience about why it is so infatuated with management logic and so antagonistic to the efforts of a labor union that battles for its members and, ultimately, for the entire city's public-safety welfare.

PATRICK J. LYNCH, President, Patrolmen's Benevolent Association

Editor's reply: We have long been on record lamenting the discrepancy between salaries for city cops and those in the suburbs. What seems to bother Mr. Lynch is that we cite the municipal bargaining relationships that have made it more difficult for his members to keep pace, but have not embraced the 20-year-old recommendation of the Zuccotti Commission that the city end the parity relationship between cops and firefighters to narrow the gap.

We have also questioned his decision to raise maximum salaries more at the expense of his future members in the 2005 arbitration, resulting in an award for which we have repeatedly stated that both the PBA and the Bloomberg administration share blame. We believe, to use Mr. Lynch's phrase, that he performed a giant disservice not only to his members hired after June 2005, but to those already on the job who are seeking to advance, by agreeing to a deal that wound up negatively affecting salaries for those promoted into higher ranks of the NYPD.

Off the top of our heads, we can cite two significant decisions over the last decade in which the city Board of Collective Bargaining ruled in favor of the police unions and against Mayors Bloomberg and Giuliani. They are: the ruling that the Police Commissioner could not pay an extra differential to designated cops without union consent, and that the NYPD could not use hair samples for drug-testing without negotiating the change in policy. We also have a feeling that if we started listing all the conclusions of that 1998 mayoral task force, Mr. Lynch would have problems with quite a few of them.

If claiming that PERB violated an agreement not to submit the names of certain arbitrators for consideration is not attacking the agency's credibility, we're not sure what is. That is particularly so in light of the statement by PERB Director of Conciliation Richard Curreri that he made no promises of the sort the PBA insists it received.

Once again, Mr. Lynch has ducked the point by Mr. Hanley that to our minds made clear that he was seeking to stall the arbitration. That is, in 2002 and 2005, the PBA simply exercised its right to have the two arbitrators stricken from consideration. Why resort to walking away from the selection process this time, rather than merely knocking them out again, unless Mr. Lynch is trying to drag out the process?

We eagerly await his explanation for the change of tactics.