New York public union accepts deep contract concessions

Under the threat of major layoffs, thousands of Civil Service Employees Association members voted to accept a new, five-year contract with major concessions but some protection against layoffs for the first three years. By accepting furloughs and increases in payments for health care, along with no across-the-board pay raises for the first three years, CSEA members took a wage cut.

The results of the vote were announced Aug. 15. According to a union statement, “The agreement was approved by a total vote of 16,896 ‘yes’ to 11,856 ‘no’,” which is about a 60-percent “yes” vote, with less than half of the members voting. It is very rare for contract votes in New York to get more than a 50 percent participation rate.

The CSEA represents about 66,000 mainly blue-collar state workers, from Malone, N.Y., on the Canadian border to Montauk, N.Y., on the eastern tip of Long Island. It is affiliated with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees on the national level.

The union’s president, Danny Donohue, said in a statement, “These are not ordinary times, and CSEA worked hard to reach an agreement that we believed would be in everyone’s best interest.”

“This is a big, big win — a win for the union and a win for the people of the state,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement. “The union avoided layoffs, and the state is financially stronger. I’m pleased that our approach of labor and management working together is vindicated.”

It certainly was a big win for Democratic Gov. Cuomo, whose election campaign was not endorsed by CSEA, according to a video clip from Donohue. Cuomo also wasn’t endorsed by some other large public-sector unions like New York State United Teachers. (Albany Times Union, Aug. 12, 2010) This lack of support doesn’t reflect the unions moving away from the Democratic Party as such, just a rejection of a particular candidate’s policies on state workers.

Cuomo still found a way to get major concessions from unions without a direct confrontation like the attacks in Wisconsin and New Jersey conducted by Republican governors. This preserves Cuomo’s “liberal” image for a future career in national politics while he carries out a major attack on the wages and living standards of state workers.

According to the civil employees’ weekly The Chief, of July 1, after the executive board of the CSEA accepted Cuomo’s offer in late June, the Professional Employees Federation was waiting for the state to respond to its counteroffer, since Cuomo’s offer to PEF was much worse than the one CSEA got. PEF is the second-largest union representing New York state workers, mainly professional, scientific and technical personnel, with 55,000 members. It was formed in the late 1970s as a split from the CSEA and is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers on the national level.

While PEF was on hold, management started calling its members into “layoff meetings” with “little or no notice.” (www.pef.org) According to PEF’s website, these meetings didn’t always conform to the contract provisions. They also took place while CSEA members were voting.

Finally, in early August, PEF got an offer similar to the CSEA, and PEF’s executive board, a body of 135 members from every department in the state, agreed to send it out to its members on Sept. 2.

In a statement released Aug. 11, PEF president Ken Brynien said: “There were no good choices. In the past, contract negotiations achieved significant gains for our members. Unfortunately, the state of the economy, the will of the state’s political leaders and public sentiment have created an environment where the services our members provide are undervalued.”

Neither Donohue nor Brynien mentioned the fact that the “will of the state’s political leaders” not to “enhance revenue” by maintaining the tax surcharge on wealthy New Yorkers, and perhaps even increasing it to the levels in force before former Gov. George Pataki cut it drastically, was the real problem. Maintaining or increasing it would have meant the budget crisis in New York would not have to be solved by slashing wages and social services.

There are a few other smaller state unions, like United University Professions, which represents faculty and staff at the State University of New York, and the Professional Staff Congress, which represents faculty and staff at the City University of New York — partially state-funded — which do not have contracts.

Cuomo was able to effectively threaten the CSEA and PEF with layoffs and play one off against the other. Both unions had a number of small demonstrations statewide, mainly of their own members, but the New York state labor movement was not able to build a mass movement to defend the needs of these two unions.

Other states in the Northeast, like Connecticut, have also used threats, intimidation and changing the rules to get contracts with deep concessions accepted by union members.