Wage Pattern's Dual Edge

Pattern bargaining giveth, and pattern bargaining taketh away.

That has become clear with the Bloomberg administration's continued agreement to provide reasonable raises to municipal unions, most recently the Correction Officers Benevolent Association and District Council 37, even as outside fiscal watchdogs bark that those contracts are too generous given the current fiscal climate.

Conversely, there was unhappiness among more than a few DC 37 officials — including some who voted in favor of the contract terms — about the gap between their deal and those agreed to by several uniformed unions in the area of special compensation.

The wage hikes for all unions that have come to terms for the relevant two-year period are the same: 4-percent annually. What bothered DC 37 officials is that the city agreed to additional compensation beyond the basic raises worth just a tenth of a percent. That is well short of the 1.59 percent it first granted to the Sergeants Benevolent Association 16 months ago that has since been standard for other uniformed unions, which can use that money for purposes including longevity and annuity increases.

Over the past four decades, uniformed unions have done slightly better at the bargaining table than their civilian counterparts, but the difference generally amounted to about .5 percent a year. The difference in special compensation widens that gap this time to .75 a year.

Earlier this year, DC 37 harbored hopes of negotiating a contract that wouldn't have any gap at all. The theory behind this was that in the past, that union or another civilian one had reached the first contract of a bargaining round and so had no recourse when uniformed unions ultimately got slightly more. With a uniformed union setting the pattern this time, DC 37 believed it might be able to convince an arbitration panel that it should not be forced to take less. That possibility at the least gave it leverage to use at the bargaining table.

That leverage was lost, however, in mid-September when Teamsters Local 237 reached a deal with the city for significantly less in extra compensation than the uniformed unions got. That deal provided .25 percent in extra compensation, and Local 237 had to extend the accord 13 days beyond the standard two-year duration to help pay for .15 percent of it.

Local 237 President Greg Floyd offered a logical explanation for not holding out for more: watching the first throes of the Wall Street collapse, he became convinced the economy was going to get worse and so it made sense to grab a decent deal rather than holding out for something closer to the uniformed terms.

DC 37 initially responded by demanding a three-year pact with 4-percent increases annually, but after it became apparent that the Bloomberg administration wouldn't offer that extra year, it accepted a deal patterned on the Local 237 accord. It actually provides slightly less in extra compensation because Mayor Bloomberg was no longer willing to pay more money in return for a slightly extended pact.

DC 37's hopes of doing better in arbitration evaporated once Local 237 established a civilian pattern.

But just as pattern bargaining hurt it in that regard, it probably also helped. If the SBA deal in July 2007 — which city negotiators agreed to as part of a strategy to create a pattern to limit the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association's award in a then-pending arbitration — hadn't been in place, the administration almost certainly would have looked to bargain smaller increases with the unions that have reached deals over the past 10 weeks.

And so as much as some union leaders have railed against pattern bargaining as an improper check on their aspirations when they can justify pay hikes above the norm, it can also serve them in situations where worsening financial circumstances would offer the city a strong argument for granting less.