UFOA, Sanit Ready
UFA Pact Okay To Spark Other Talks

By RICHARD STEIER

The ratification of the Uniformed Firefighters' Association contract May 10 has prompted other uniformed unions to restart their stalled contract talks with the city, even as their leaders say they want deals that deviate from some of the pact's key terms.

STEVE CASSIDY: 'Thrilled' by ratification.

In balloting tallied by the American Arbitration Association, Firefighters voted 4,037 (56.5 percent) to 3,115 in favor of the two-year contract, which features two four-percent raises, an upgrade in the pay scale for new Firefighters that is financed by reducing several key benefits during their first five years on the job, and added differentials for Firefighters who serve as company Chauffeurs and Tillermen and those assigned to Rescue Companies and Haz-Mat Units under the Special Operations Command.

Controversial Bonus

Ironically, much of the opposition to the UFA deal stemmed from resentment that a 12-percent differential - the same bonus paid to Fire Marshals - was being granted only to the roughly 500 Firefighters in Rescue and Haz-Mat assignments. UFA President Steve Cassidy had noted, however, that this money did not come at the expense of other parts of the deal and said that it laid the foundation for him to add other groups from his 8,900-member rank and file to those getting the bonus in future contracts.

PETER L. GORMAN: Some unresolved issues.

"We're thrilled," he said in a May 11 phone interview. "It's an innovative contract, and we have the opportunity to expand [the specialization pay] in the next round."

Noting that the deal will not expire until next August and that it allowed the UFA to set the uniformed wage pattern for the first time in more than a decade, Mr. Cassidy said, "We're out in front for the first time in a long time. We intend to begin negotiating on the next one a long time before this one expires."

Impact on Others Cloudy

It was not clear how the specialization pay differential, as well as the 3-percent extra increase in compensation for those driving fire trucks and steering the rear end of the FDNY's few remaining hook-and-ladder vehicles, would affect the bargaining of other uniformed unions. Several officials have predicted that it would be hard to give the specialization differential to Firefighters in Rescue and Haz-Mat units without also providing it to officers.

HARRY NESPOLI: Wants to undo concessions.

UFOA President Peter L. Gorman met with Labor Relations Commissioner James F. Hanley the morning after the UFA deal was ratified. In an interview prior to that sitdown, he said one of the questions he had was how the specialization pay might be applied for officers.

"I've got members who have 'covering' assignments in SOC," said Captain Gorman, meaning that they fill in as needed for the officers normally working in those units. "Are they all going to be eligible?"

Following his meeting with Mr. Hanley, he said, "We're optimistic we can get a contract settled in a timely manner." The old UFOA pact expired March 20.

Asked to assess the impact of the UFA pact of other unions' bargaining, Mr. Gorman said, "What it means in simple terms is, there's certainly a uniformed pattern out there."

Different Priority

He was among the members of what had been a uniformed coalition who were upset when Mr. Cassidy broke away to reach his deal with the Bloomberg administration in March, despite the claims of both Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Hanley that the coalition talks had been stagnant for the previous six weeks.

"I wish the pattern was set by a uniformed coalition," Captain Gorman said last week. "I think the Mayor was worried about what an arbitrator might do, and that gave us leverage to address something like starting salaries."

In the previous round of bargaining, an arbitration award that gave the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association two 5-percent raises but financed them in part by sharply reducing the pay scale for new cops forced other uniformed unions to make a similar concession. While the city's trouble recruiting cops has gotten most of the attention in the media, the leaders of supervisory unions have claimed the impact on their members has been at least as drastic, since reducing their pay scales has diminished the salary gain from being promoted out of the entry ranks of the uniformed services.

Reluctant to Advance

A strikingly low number of Police Officers taking the Sergeant exam and a much lower percentage of them passing it than in prior years led Sergeants' Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins to assert that the reduced starting salary for the rank deterred many capable candidates from seeking a promotion.

Mr. Gorman suggested that the city's concern about getting a contract to put added pressure on the PBA as it prepares for another wage arbitration could have made it more amenable to undoing the damage done by the pay-scale reductions under the previous uniformed pacts. That was not Mr. Cassidy's priority in his bargaining, however.

The UFA leader frankly admitted that the improved starting salary touted by Mayor Bloomberg was offset by givebacks in other areas affecting future Firefighters, and that only those who came in at the reduced rate under the old contract but were already on the payroll when this deal was reached would really benefit from the changes.

Pay Up, Benefits Down

Firefighters under the previous pact began work at $25,100 but upon completing 13 weeks of Fire Academy training advanced to $32,700, making their first-year base salary $30,800. The new starting pay is $35,000, and it will rise to $36,400 Aug. 1, when the second of the two four-percent pay raises under the contract takes effect.

The UFA opted to "fund" that improvement, however, by accepting several concessions for future Firefighters covering their first five years on the job: a reduction in paid holidays each year from 12 to 6, a cut in night-shift differential, and the loss of most annuity money during that period.

Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association President Harry Nespoli said his rank and file was "concerned about the newborns," adding that the reduced pay scale under the last contract - which in his union's case expired in early March - was "a bad thing. That has to be addressed in this contract."

Aims to Aid 'Newborns'

He declined to discuss, however, how he might be able to elevate the pay scale without having to sacrifice benefits in other areas, even as he said his members are opposed to "giving up benefits even for people who aren't on the job yet."

He hopes to meet with Mr. Hanley later this week, and said he was optimistic that the two sides could reach terms relatively quickly. The last USA contract was not reached until roughly three years after the old one had expired in the fall of 2002.

A spokesman for Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch said regarding the UFA pact, "As a matter of policy we don't comment on other unions' contracts."

PBA Raps Re-Opener

The UFA pact by mid-summer will raise maximum salary for Firefighters to $68,475, or nearly $9,000 above top pay for Police Officers. The discrepancy is due to the UFA having settled deals that run four years later than the old PBA pact, which expired July 31, 2004. Mayoral officials clearly hoped that the gap would provoke enough rank-and-file discontent that Mr. Lynch might return to the bargaining table rather than awaiting the conclusion of an arbitration process that is unlikely to end until sometime next year. That arbitration also figures to leave cops two years behind Firefighters: unless both sides consent to a longer award, arbitrators cannot produce a contract for more than two years.

The PBA has filed an improper practice petition with the Public Employment Relations Board challenging a re-opener clause in the UFA pact. It claims that by giving Firefighters the right to return to the table if the PBA gets a better deal, the Bloomberg administration granted what amounts to a "me-too clause," which is prohibited under the Taylor Law.

Mr. Cassidy said he did not believe that the PBA's move led to a victory margin that was tighter among his rank and file than among UFA delegates, 65 percent of whom had voted to approve the terms. But he added, "I think there are some Firefighters who don't understand what the re-opener is and how important it is to us."

40% Gain Since 2000

The UFA deal also increases longevity differentials at all levels by $1,000 effective Sept. 1, gives Firefighters a city drug prescription card, increases the uniformed allowance for Fire Marshals by $1,100 annually at contract's end, and boosts city welfare fund contributions for retirees by $80 per member.

UFA officials noted that since Mr. Cassidy took office in 2002, contracts he negotiated - one of which was retroactive to 2000 - will have boosted pay for veteran Firefighters by more than 40 percent when the raise under the second year of this pact takes effect in August.

One union leader who had expected to use a UFA ratification as a springboard to getting his own contract by mid-summer, Lieutenants' Benevolent Association President Anthony Garvey, said police union aspirations had been set back by another development last week: a Public Employment Relations Board ruling that extending cops' tours was a prohibited subject of bargaining.

That decision came as part of the PBA arbitration case, but it looms large over all the other police unions, because it gives the Bloomberg administration the latitude to set tours for all cops at 8 hours. If it chose to do so, the shorter tours would require cops of all ranks to work more shifts in order to comply with the requirement under state law that they be scheduled for 2,088 hours a year.

Puts Cop Unions on Hold  

The UFA ratification, Mr. Garvey said, meant that for any union leader convinced that the parity relationship between Firefighters and Police Officers would not be ended by a PBA arbitration ruling, "there was no downside to going in and negotiating."

But the potential impact of the scope-of-bargaining ruling on length of tours is so "potentially devastating," Mr. Garvey said, that all police union leaders will have to await the outcome of the PBA's expected appeal before negotiating in earnest. He said he was unsure even that a current contract provision allowing some of his members to make fewer appearances because they are working 12-hour shifts would not be disrupted as a result of the ruling.

Among groups not representing police officers, he predicted, the impact of the UFA vote would be that "the floodgates are going to open and every union is going to go in and negotiate a deal."