Razzle Dazzle: Breakthrough Not All PBA Hoped

Razzle Dazzle
Breakthrough Not All PBA Hoped


Analyzing the 2005 Patrolmen's Benevolent Association arbitration award wasn't that complicated: while it contained surface benefits for both sides, it was at bottom a bad bargain for both the union and the Bloomberg administration.

Last week's PBA award is less clear-cut and surrounded by seemingly contradictory messages. It represents the most definitive break of the parity between Police Officers and Firefighters that the PBA has achieved, but the union was sufficiently unhappy with the actual terms that it did not sign the award. The administration did, even though Mayor Bloomberg had previously warned that a departure from the uniformed wage pattern of any significance would open the floodgates and soak the city treasury at a particularly bad time.

 Award Got Scaled Down

The reactions by the two sides are less about who benefits most from the final award, but rather how that award changed from a proposal made by the arbitration panel chair, Susan Mackenzie, less than a month earlier. According to one source, her original proposal had been for two 5-percent raises, with the only giveback being a six-month delay in implementation of the first one.

A SPLIT DECISION: While Mayor Bloomberg (left) insisted the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association had erred in pursuing a long, acrimonious contract arbitration that merely won the union 'money they could've gotten four years ago,' union President Pat Lynch actually succeeded in breaking through a uniformed wage pattern by 3.5 percent, although part of the pay hike is offset by concessions. While his tactics helped gain him re-election last year without opposition, union members seem less than thrilled by the terms of last week's award.

Had she stuck to that, it would have been a decisive victory for the PBA, and a stinging defeat for the administration. Things changed, however, in a kind of mirror image of the 2002 arbitration.

Back then, before an award was issued the Daily News reported - in two separate stories - that the PBA had been given a choice of accepting the same wage increases over 24 months that other uniformed unions had previously negotiated over 30, but with its members required to work 10 additional tours; or a slightly reduced wage package in line with the shorter duration of the award. As word filtered out and protests emanated from the union's rank and file, what one official described as union "brow-beating" began, and a month later, the arbitration chairman gave the PBA wage hikes matching those negotiated by the uniformed coalition under a pact that was six months shorter.

This time it appears that the Bloomberg administration did the superior job of brow-beating. The award, as Labor Commissioner Jim Hanley acknowledged, is "greater than the pattern" set by the other uniformed unions. But the givebacks involved raise real questions as to whether the award is a better deal, at least in the here and now.

Less than 24 hours after the award was issued, Mayor Bloomberg argued that its terms offered "a good demonstration of why it doesn't make sense to go to arbitration. They got some money [yesterday] that they could've gotten four years ago. You can always come up with a better agreement that is tailored to the people you represent if you do it face to face." He contended that whatever money the award provided above the uniformed pattern had already been eaten up by inflation.

Those points were echoed in editorials the following day in the Daily News and the Post, both of which were particularly harsh in their treatment of PBA President Pat Lynch.

There were certain assumptions in both the Mayor's statements and the editorials that don't hold up under scrutiny, however.

Higher Pay Rates Won't Wither

One was that the same deal could have been had four years ago. While the PBA award dates back to Aug. 1, 2004, it wasn't until the following June that the previous arbitration was decided. Realistically, the soonest a successor contract could have been negotiated was in 2006, meaning the ravages of inflation should be considered for just a two-year period. And whatever cops may have lost as a result in cash value, the better pay rates - 3.5 percent above the uniformed pattern once compounding is figured in - that resulted will work to their benefit in the long run, pushing future salaries and pension allowances upward.

Mr. Lynch could be faulted for a seven-month delay in choosing an arbitrator because he objected that two potential panelists that the Public Employment Relations Board put forward had been part of the panel that awarded a 1997 PBA contract that froze salaries for the first two years of the pact. Given that there were seven other arbitrators to choose from, there was no real tactical disadvantage to simply striking them from consideration and choosing from the rest to get a single person to serve as chairman.

Politically speaking, however, there was something to gain for Mr. Lynch. The dispute played out in early 2007 as he was preparing to run for re-election; his hard line on the issue helped his standing with his members and may have been a factor in his not having a single opponent for his third four-year term.

The 2002 arbitration produced a small but significant edge for the PBA, since its members got the same raises as other uniformed employees but with six months more to bargain a subsequent hike. The 2005 award was clearly superior to the one existing municipal pact - an awful deal agreed to by District Council 37 - but the flashy-looking raises, while popular with incumbents, were offset by the way in which future cops got screwed by the eviscerated pay scale, and the concessions other police unions had to make wound up harming the career path for PBA members who were subsequently promoted.

Previously-Screwed Do Best

This time, the PBA award again hurts the unborn, although not nearly as badly as the 2005 pact did. One irony of the new contract is that, in raising the starting salary to $35,881, retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006, it actually benefits those who have been hired since then to a greater extent than more-senior cops (although those who have already reached maximum salary will see the largest retroactive checks, in the vicinity of $20,000).

That also has the effect of curing a major public-relations problem for the city that was a product of the 2005 arbitration: the starting rate of $25,100. It only lasted for the six months that cops were in the Police Academy, after which their pay went to $32,700, but it clearly made recruitment difficult, notwithstanding the Mayor's claim last week that "there's no evidence that I know of - other than common sense - that low salaries are the problem."

For Mr. Lynch, that was not the primary issue. If anything, the low salaries worked to his advantage by increasing the public support for a significant pay hike, but he placed more emphasis on bringing up maximum salaries, saying that this was necessary to stem the rising attrition rate among veteran cops who moved to other departments where salaries were much higher and job conditions were less stressful.

From his standpoint, the prime issue was whether he could win enough for veteran officers to outweigh the concessions and the considerable time and money (the previous PBA arbitration cost about $8 million) devoted to the arbitration. The reaction among some officers to the award was decidedly mixed, but it's not clear that this will translate to anger with the union leader, rather than deepening resentment of Mr. Bloomberg's tough stance.

Other Unions: Deal a Winner

The reaction of some other uniformed unions suggests that Mr. Lynch got enough to have made going to arbitration for the third time in as many negotiations worthwhile.

Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy was unequivocal on that score, saying the day after the May 19 award was issued, "It's hard to couch it as anything other than a win for the PBA."

He was equally certain that "we'll be able to come up with similar concessions to get the same value and match the deal."

But when asked whether he would agree to relinquish 10 vacation days per year for future Firefighters during their first five years of service, Mr. Cassidy replied, "I think we've already made concessions for rookie Firefighters."

He was referring to the union's March 2007 contract, covering a period after the PBA award - which runs from August 2004 through July 2006 - and cutting paid holidays, annuity pay and night differentials for rookies to offset an increase in their starting salary to $35,000.

It seems unlikely, however, that the Bloomberg administration will credit those concessions from a different round of bargaining when discussing with the UFA how it can approximate the givebacks the PBA was forced to make under the arbitration award. Mr. Cassidy wouldn't have to reach quite as deep, since the 2.81 percent in concessions the administration claims the PBA made helps offset a boost in the pay scale for future members - a gain of .49 percent - that the UFA has already addressed.

Imperative to Match Raises

But it's not clear where Mr. Cassidy might produce the remaining 2.32 percent in concessions, and he said he "absolutely" had to match the raises the award granted the PBA, which exceed the hikes of 3 and 3.15 percent he negotiated for roughly the same period by 3.5 percent with compounding.

He declined to discuss the specifics; what seemed more important to the UFA leader was that the reopener language he won as part of his contract nearly 16 months ago gave him the opportunity to regain pay parity with the PBA.

For some union leaders, that is less of a consideration. Uniformed Sanitationmen's Association President Harry Nespoli is in a unique spot: his members' base pay is set at 90 percent of what cops make, but they receive a large-enough differential if they work on the two-person collection trucks that in many cases they earn more than cops before overtime. And so he issued a statement ruling out making concessions affecting new hires, or surrendering a vacation day, as Police Officers will have to under the award in order to re-qualify on the NYPD gun range.

"But I do want to keep our options open," Mr. Nespoli said.

Roy Richter, who last November was elected president of the Captains Endowment Association and inherited a contract that runs through 2012, said May 21, "You can rest assured that I will seek to reopen the contract."

Seeking Group Sitdown

But he said he was uncertain whether the Bloomberg administration would make similar demands for concessions of his union in return for matching the PBA raises, and whether there was some middle ground they could find. He said he had reached out to other uniformed union presidents about meeting jointly with Mr. Hanley to discuss the matter before deciding how they would pursue their reopener rights. "For efficiency sake, it might be better if we hear what he has to say together," he explained.

As president of the Lieutenants Benevolent Association, Tony Garvey avoided gutting the pay scale for new promotees, as the PBA had for new cops under the 2005 arbitration award, by having them work additional tours while also slightly extending the tours of incumbents. Late last summer, he gave up the union job to become Executive Director of the Police Pension Fund, but while his vantage point is different, his view of what matters hasn't changed.

"Certainly for the supervisory unions, where you're talking about incumbents [promoted into the ranks they represent], it's not palatable to impose any more pain," Mr. Garvey said.

The other uniformed unions are thankful they negotiated reopener clauses, Mr. Garvey said, but it was to the city's advantage to grant them. "They used that in their defense before the arbitrator," he noted, referring to the argument by the administration that breaking the pattern with the PBA award would have a substantial ripple effect because of those clauses.

Skeptical About Savings

One area each union will examine closely, he said, is the savings the city placed on the concessions the PBA had to accept under the award. Assistant Deputy Wardens/Deputy Wardens Association President Sidney Schwartzbaum wondered whether city officials hadn't inflated the value of the improved rescheduling rights the Police Department won: the opportunity to reschedule Police Officers' tours for an additional five days each year without overtime obligations, and to reschedule them on six "special event" days at no extra cost on just 24 hours' notice, compared to the prior requirement that they be told a week in advance.

Until recently, the NYPD did not take full advantage of its rescheduling rights, but Mr. Garvey said that it had "gradually" increased the times that officers' tours were changed to save on overtime during the past couple of years.

The city has estimated savings of 1.34 percent from the two rescheduling changes; a prime area of contention could be whether the unions believe that figure is accurate.

Mr. Garvey predicted that rather than winding up before new arbitration panels if the unions and the city couldn't reconcile their differences, "I think it will end up in a grievance arbitrator's hands, because it deals with an existing contract."

'Win' May Not Carry Over

He remarked, "Anything over [the uniformed] pattern is a win for the PBA. It doesn't guarantee a win for the other unions."

But it's possible that the city will be more flexible with the uniformed unions than it was after the 2005 PBA arbitration, for reasons that range from tactical to the good will those groups accumulated in the intervening years. The PBA back then had a free shot at the city in arbitration, with no uniformed pattern to limit it, because those unions had agreed to wait in the hope that they could then take advantage of whatever award resulted.

The attrition-based nature of the old PBA pact, however, forced the other unions to make more-difficult concessions to get the same wage increases. That was a major reason that they didn't defer to the PBA for the next round of bargaining and reached their own deals relatively quickly. Their willingness to come to the table then could make the Bloomberg administration more inclined to be reasonable - and less insistent that concessions come from the same areas as for the PBA - in bringing pay relationships back into line.

Those directly affected by the PBA award were not feeling that kind of optimism, judging by the remarks of a half-dozen cops interviewed by this newspaper, none of whom wanted to speak for attribution.

One of them, who is among those hired in 2006 or later and thus subjected to the eviscerated pay scale when they joined the NYPD, took a dim view of the award, calling it "the same thing as in 2005: they sacrificed the unborn in order to take care of people already on the job. If this was negotiated, I would have voted against it, because it did the same thing to future cops that was done to me."

'Pay Still Ranks At Bottom'

His fellow officers don't necessarily feel that way, he added, and are more likely to share Mr. Lynch's attitude that the wage hikes are decent but not nearly good enough. (The PBA leader, in a statement issued after the award was finalized, noted, "we will still rank at the bottom of the pay scale when compared to other local departments ... Our members will still look across borders to see others working in law enforcement earning as much as $30,000 a year more for work in less-challenging environments and with lower costs of living in communities not nearly as prosperous as New York.")

"The general mood," the post-2006 cop said, "is they're not happy, but the main reason is they were hoping for a bigger retro check. People are kind of annoyed about giving up the extra day," referring to the provision under which they will now have to re-qualify at the NYPD gun range using a vacation day.

He spoke of a disconnect between younger cops - many of whom suffered from the 2005 award - and more-senior PBA members in how they regard the union and its president.

"They all hate Bloomberg, but the more time an officer has on the job, the more they defend Lynch," he said. "For guys with less time on, the PBA might as well be on another planet. You can't even get a PBA card, the delegates don't return your calls."

The sense of alienation this has created among younger cops, he continued, virtually guarantees that there will not be a serious evaluation of whether arbitration has had the desired result for the union during the next PBA negotiation on a contract that is already 22 months overdue.

"Guys who have been on only a few years, all they can talk about is going to other police departments," he explained. "They don't even think about [future bargaining strategy] because they're all thinking about going someplace else."