Time to Bargain, Governor

Speaking of Governor Spitzer and curious delays, why isn't his Office of Employee Relations acting to reach contracts with state-employee unions?

Most of those unions seem anxious to get new pacts to replace those that expired April 1. To this point, however, there has been little activity from the Governor's side.

With a state budget in place and no monstrous deficits on the horizon, there are no obvious reasons to further delay bargaining. The six-month gap since the expiration of most state-union contracts looks particularly glaring because the Bloomberg administration over the past year has settled several key contracts with municipal unions before their old deals expired.

For a guy who won a landslide victory running on the slogan, "On Day 1, everything changes," Mr. Spitzer has been a little slow out of the box in dealing with his unions.