Governor Vetoes Contract Arbitration for Court Staff; Cites Cost, Flaw in Bill

Governor Paterson has vetoed a bill that would have allowed unions representing employees of the Unified Court System to enter into binding arbitration in contract disputes.

DENNIS QUIRK: 'We will persist.'

Currently, Court Clerks and uniformed court officers must seek legislative resolutions to labor disputes because they lack arbitration rights.

Fears Costs Would Ripple

The bill, which was vetoed for the fourth time in as many years, would have set up a three-member public arbitration panel to hold hearings on final and binding determinations. The legislation would have covered Nassau, Suffolk, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester counties and New York City.

The Governor cited the current economic climate as one of the reasons for the veto. "The bill expands binding arbitration beyond public safety and transportation employees, to whom this dispute resolution process has heretofore been limited," he wrote. "I am concerned that extending binding arbitration in this direction, without a specific rationale or limiting principle, will inevitably lead to its expansion to numerous other groups of employees, and to higher costs for the state."

Court Officers Association President Dennis Quirk said he was not surprised by the veto because the Governor rejected other binding arbitration bills. He speculated that one reason for the veto was that the court unions will need new contracts in less than three years.

In his veto message, Mr. Paterson also faulted the bill for not covering the entire state. "This step would severely complicate the collective-bargaining process for the Unified Court System, which would operate under two different sets of rules regarding the same classes of employees," he wrote.

The Governor also said the bill was technically flawed because it omitted a phrase that would indicate what finding must be certified by the Public Employment Relations Board before arbitration may commence. He said prior veto messages had pointed out this flaw, but it had not been corrected.

Will 'Revisit' Bill's Flaws

Mr. Quirk promised the bill would be resubmitted with changes. "We will go back to this bill and revisit those technical flaws," he said. "We will persist."

In July 2007, Governor Spitzer signed a bill into law granting the Detective Investigators Association the right to binding arbitration. The union represents 302 Investigators who are duly appointed peace officers who work for the five District Attorneys' Offices and the Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office. (That union was disappointed, however, by the arbitration award it received in March.)

The Governor cited parity as a reason for the approval as District Attorneys' employees in other state jurisdictions had the right to arbitration. The court officer bill would have created an uneven playing field since arbitration privileges would not have been consistent across the state.