Another Brick in City's Wall

A recent arbitration award involving the Detective Investigators Association confined the union's members to the same contract terms won by civilian employees rather than granting its petition for a pact matching those for uniformed workers.

This was a major victory for the Bloomberg administration even though the bargaining unit at issue consists of just 293 employees who work for the five District Attorneys and the city's Special Narcotics Prosecutor. That's because it also has sobering ramifications for the unions representing several thousand Emergency Medical Service workers who are seeking to have their classification early this decade as uniformed workers translate into improved salaries and pension benefits.

An EMS union spokesman scoffed at the suggestion that the award could be used to the city's advantage in ongoing bargaining, in part because the EMS unions got uniformed status from laws enacted by the City Council over a mayoral veto and the DIA membership benefited from a state law.

That distinction did not really figure into the ruling by arbitrator Gayle Gavin, however. Nor did it seem relevant to the case made by the Bloomberg administration.

The legislation for the DIA members, most of whom actually hold three titles in the Rackets Investigator series (there are no Detective Investigators in the current bargaining unit and just five with the title of Senior Detective Investigator), was actually passed in 1989, a dozen years earlier than EMS employees were granted uniformed status by the Council, which was later upheld by the state's highest court.

As most arbitrators do, Ms. Gavin, who was selected by the two warring parties from a list provided by the Office of Collective Bargaining, relied heavily on precedent in making her decision. In the 19 years since uniformed status was granted, she noted, the union had continued, however grudgingly, to accept the civilian settlements. The city had also pointed out that the only unions that have been eligible for the uniformed union bargaining pattern have been receiving it for as long - dating back to the 1960s - as separate bargaining patterns have been in effect for civilian and uniformed workers.

The Bloomberg administration, in what would surely be its argument in an arbitration with the EMS unions as well, stated that the 1989 legislation giving DIA members uniformed status reflected a successful lobbying effort rather than an acknowledgment that a change in the duties of the workers warranted an upgrade.

Ms. Gavin accepted that rationale, but in laying the foundation for doing so, she cited two factors that are just as political in the city's favor as the legislation was in the union's. She noted the testimony of Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Martha Hirst that the nature of the duties of DIA members, as well as their qualifications and work hours, marks them as employees belonging in the Career and Salary Plan for civilian workers, and the fact that the District Attorneys did not lobby for a classification upgrade on behalf of the employees.

Whatever the merits of Ms. Hirst's arguments, she is an employee of the Bloomberg administration, and so it is hard to imagine her making the case for a position change that would cost the city money if the Mayor was opposed to it. The DAs are independent, but they derive a significant part of their funding from the city budget, making it politically imprudent for them to throw their weight behind the union.

Other aspects of the reasoning behind Ms. Gavin's ruling are less open to question. She found that while the number of investigators has risen during the past two decades amid a corresponding drop in the number of NYPD Detectives detailed to the DAs' Offices, their duties have not substantially changed. And she concluded that while many of those represented by the DIA are retired city cops, they are all placed above the entry-level title of Rackets Investigator, with salaries that are a few thousand dollars above or below what Third-Grade Detectives receive, and unlike Detectives (or any other city uniformed workers) receive merit bonuses, which went as high as $8,555 in 2006.

Those who are not ex-Detectives and are hired as Rackets Investigators, Ms. Gavin observed, do not need the same educational requirements as those who become Police Officers. And Police Officers are promoted to Detective with an average of 10 years on the job, she wrote in her decision.

DIA President John Fleming last week expressed frustration that Ms. Gavin awarded his members the civilian terms for the bargaining round covering 2002-2005 - amounting to six-percent raises under a three-year deal - rather than giving them the same 10-percent raise over two years won by the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, although that contract offset a major part of the cost to the city (more than 4 percent) by reducing starting salaries and slowing the pay progression for new employees.

He decided against going to court to appeal the award, he said, because judges rarely undo rulings by administrative bodies, and "after 3-1/2 years without a contract, a lot of people desperately need the money."

That means the award becomes one more brick in the wall that the city has been able to build over the years against invasion of the uniformed bargaining pattern and accompanying benefits by groups that weren't part of the collection of 15 unions granted the special status more than 40 years ago.