Jail Captains Ratify Pact By 2-1 Ratio

By REUVEN BLAU

Members of the Correction Captains Association have voted resoundingly to ratify their collective-bargaining agreement with the Bloomberg administration.

RONALD WHITFIELD: A cloud in silver lining.

Members submitted their votes by mail and ratified the contract with a 67 percent approval, with 246 votes in favor and 123 opposed.

A Falloff in Interest

Nonetheless, CCA officials said they were concerned by the low returns. The union represents 830 Captains.

In contrast, the last CCA contract was ratified by a vote of 496 for and 33 against. That deal, however, was funded in part by requiring newly hired Captains to work an additional six tours a year while stretching their salary scale.

CCA President Ronald Whitfield said that a scheduling conflict made it difficult for all the union's delegates to get briefed on the current deal that will provide members with four 4-percent raises, with longevity pay included, which brings pay for veteran supervisors above $100,000.

"I do feel that some of them didn't explain it to the members," Mr. Whitfield said during a phone interview last week. "The information wasn't disseminated as well as I would have liked it to have been."

Mr. Whitfield pointed out that there was also a low ballot return for the last Correction Officers Benevolent Association officer election, with only approximately 3,000 of the 8,000 eligible officers voting.

'Tried to Inform Them'

"I hate to think that it's a trend in the department with people not taking too much interest, but that's what it appears to be," Mr. Whitfield said. "We did make every attempt to go around to every facility to explain the contract as well as we could."

He added, "It was their constitutional right to decide not to vote. Am I pleased with it? No."

A lot of supervisors, he said, likely believed that their vote wouldn't count, because the contract appeared to be broadly supported. "We try to explain to them that's not necessarily so, we want them to show interest in their union," Mr. Whitfield remarked.

This was also the first time in years that the contract was negotiated on time, he added. "Whenever they know it's retro, you get a big turnout," he said. "We accomplished something that's never been accomplished before, and that's to have a contract in place before the previous contract expired. Could that have had something to do with it? Yeah, it could be."

Key Terms

The new agreement, which also eliminates one salary step for all its members, is consistent in its cost to the city with other uniformed union settlements reached over the past several months. The contract will run from Dec. 16, 2007 through June 30, 2012.

The CCA used the six-and-a-half month delay in the final two raises to help fund added annuity boosts, welfare-fund raises, and longevity increases. The union also used that stretch to eliminate one salary step for all its members. Under the ratified deal, all Captains will reach maximum pay after five years - a year earlier than at present - effective March 16, 2010.