A Role Reversal?
PBA Says City's Stalling Pact Now

By REUVEN BLAU

The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association last week slammed a request by the Mayor's Office of Labor Relations for an added week to submit its closing brief in the contract arbitration case.

PATRICK J. LYNCH: Protests week's delay.

The closing briefs from the PBA and the OLR were originally due by Feb. 11. But city negotiators have asked panel chairwoman Susan T. McKenzie for an extra week to complete the documents, which are expected to be lengthy.

'Vehemently Opposed'

"The PBA is vehemently opposed to the city's request to extend the deadline for filing final briefs with the [Public Employment Relations Board] panel," said PBA President Patrick J. Lynch in a statement.

Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley maintained that the request was "routine." His office, he added, needed more time to summarize and highlight specific portions of the thousands of pages of testimony generated by the 12 days of arbitration hearings.

Mr. Hanley noted that the Bloomberg administration previously took the unprecedented step of seeking to move the process towards arbitration and has repeatedly attempted to push the lengthy proceeding along.

JAMES F. HANLEY: Look who's talking.

"Then we took the unprecedented step of suing PERB just to get the process moving," he remarked, referring to the legal action taken after a nearly year-long delay due to the PBA's protest over the names of arbitrators on the selection list established by PERB.

'PBA's the Prime Delayer'

The veteran city negotiator added, "They've delayed this case beyond anything I've ever seen."

The NYPD is struggling to recruit and retain officers, which the PBA is hoping to use to its advantage, city negotiators have said.

The PBA's 24,000 members have been working under a contract that expired Aug. 1, 2004.

Since that time, virtually all the city's uniformed unions have negotiated long-term deals with the Bloomberg administration, putting the PBA up to eight years behind in some cases.

Mr. Lynch has balked at similar terms, which have averaged about 4 percent in wage hikes plus other fringe-benefit gains, insisting his members deserve raises that bring pay closer to what officers receive in neighboring suburbs.

'Stalling Won't Help City'

"Frankly, all the time in the world would not be enough to convince a fair-minded person that the city is paying its police officers the market rate of pay required by the Taylor Law," the union president said last week, referring to the week delay.

The drawn-out negotiations between the PBA and OLR and the extended and costly PERB arbitration process have frustrated both sides as well as officers on the beat, who have not received a raise since an arbitration ruling in June 2005 granted them pay hikes retroactive to 2002 and 2003.

The post-hearing briefs are the last step in a process that began soon after that award 32 months ago and has particularly aggravated the NYPD, which is having trouble recruiting new officers at the salary rate of $25,100 for officers during their training in the academy.

Once the briefs are submitted and the rebuttal documents are filed roughly a month later, Ms. McKenzie will have the arduous task of reviewing boxes of evidence and hundreds of pages of recorded testimony.

Afterwards, Ms. McKenzie will meet with the other two members of the arbitration panel and discuss the issues in an attempt to reach a consensus for an award. They are Carol O'Blenes, the city's representative, and Jay Waks, the PBA's representative, both of whom played the same roles in the 2005 arbitration.