PBA 'Win' Has Stale Taste

PBA 'Win' Has Stale Taste

For the fifth time in its last six contract negotiations, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association wound up having the pact settled in arbitration. For the third consecutive time, the union wound up with an award that was at least somewhat better than an existing municipal bargaining pattern.

And so it might seem counterintuitive that it was the PBA, rather than the Bloomberg administration, that elected not to sign off in approval on the award produced last week by the arbitration panel chair, Susan Mackenzie.

PBA President Pat Lynch was clearly displeased with the givebacks that found their way into her award in the final wrangling, diluting what was originally reported to be a proposal for a solid, concession-free contract. But the fact that such changes sometimes occur is well known; arbitration awards are one area where Yogi Berra's maxim that it ain't over until it's over certainly applies.

The wage terms are relatively generous: the raises of 4.5 and 5 percent are 3.5 percent better than those given to other uniformed employees for the comparable period once compounding is included. But cops will lose a vacation day that they now must use to qualify at the NYPD gun range, their tours can be rescheduled for an additional five days per year without their being paid overtime, and the NYPD can now call them in on six "special event" days on just 24 hours' notice at regular pay.

The most-costly concession will affect those who haven't yet been hired: while the embarrassing starting salary has been significantly upgraded, from $25,100 to $35,881, those future cops will receive 10 fewer vacation days for each of their first five years on the job.

Individual officers trying to determine whether the wage gains outweigh the loss of the vacation day and potential overtime assignments must also consider the fact that the raises are coming nearly 22 months after the expiration of the contract covered by the award. This has been part of a creeping trend: when the 2005 arbitration award was issued, it was just 10 months out of date.

The continued arbitration wars have hardened relations between the PBA and the Bloomberg administration. Mayor Bloomberg's contention last week that the union could have gotten the same money four years ago if it had negotiated is inaccurate; at that time his negotiators were offering the PBA not much more than a woefully inadequate contract District Council 37 agreed to with wage hikes averaging 2 percent a year. But the PBA's gains in arbitration have come largely at the expense of those not yet hired, and to some extent at the expense of its members who were promoted and then saddled with concessions that other police unions had to make to match the wage gains under the 2005 award.

The fact that each of the last two arbitrators has refused to be bound by existing bargaining patterns - in contrast with several predecessors - is a testament to the strength of the PBA's arguments that its members are falling increasingly further behind their counterparts in the suburbs. But arbitrators, by both inclination and for practical reasons having to do with their future employability, are reluctant to make radical breaks with established bargaining patterns, even when the arguments for doing so are compelling. This has been demonstrated in each of the three proceedings in which Mr. Lynch has been involved as PBA president.

It is instructive to look at the portions of Ms. Mackenzie's decision dealing with the union's case for an education differential and for one covering cops' terrorism-related duties.

She found that the requirement that cops have 60 college credits and an average of C or better was "significantly higher than those of other uniformed services," and noted that 15 of 20 other departments cited paid additional compensation based on education. But she ruled against the union's demand for extra money in large part because of the additional cost to the city.

She used the same rationale in denying a terrorism-related differential. State Troopers, who are less involved in such activities, won that kind of bonus in arbitration three years ago, but it was widely believed that this was because then-Governor Pataki's administration was willing to live with the added cost.

Good will, the PBA would surely argue, is a two-way street. Yet United Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, despite an often-contentious relationship with the Mayor and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, has been able to do more for her members - whose maximum salary just passed $100,000 - at the bargaining table than Mr. Lynch has in arbitration. A big part of that is attributable to her willingness to make some concessions, notably in the areas of discipline and additional time worked.

Those concessions have exposed her to sharp criticism by some of her more-militant members, which is one of the perils of making your own deals rather than leaving them in the hands of a third party. Mr. Lynch to a large extent has been able to insulate himself from such criticism; his members are more apt to blame Mr. Bloomberg or the arbitrator for aspects of their contracts that they don't like.

But they might stop to consider the contrast - Teachers with salaries that are reasonably competitive with the suburbs and raises that have been paid on schedule, while they struggle to make ends meet and the delays in getting their money grow with each successive arbitration.
 

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