Archive for March, 2010

Statement by PEF President Kenneth Brynien

FOR RELEASE: Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Albany – “The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) will not reopen its contract with the state
of New York.

PEF has repeatedly demonstrated the state can meet the governor’s target for savings replacing high-cost
consultants with lower-cost state employees, as well as through other options the union has provided.

Until the state moves decisively to slash the use of costly consultants, PEF will not accept any demand for
give-backs and we will continue to work to protect state jobs.

The anonymous statements from the governor’s office vilifying the state workforce and the unions that
represent them does not create an atmosphere conducive to a positive solution.

PEF will also hold the governor to his promise of no layoffs through his current term in office that ends
December 31, 2010,” said PEF President Kenneth Brynien.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union representing 58,000 professional, scientific and
technical employeees.

May 11th and 12th: BALCONY joins Cornell ILR in co-sponsoring “A Time for Change: Restructuring America’s Health Care Delivery System”

“A Time for Change: Restructuring America’s Health Care Delivery System”

An International Health Care Conference

BALCONY is a sponsor of the international health care conference “A Time for Change: Restructuring America’s Health Care Delivery System” May 11-12 in New York City.

Designed for health care practitioners, management and labor leaders, researchers and policymakers, the event is being organized by Cornell University’s ILR School.

“This conference comes at a critical phase of President Obama’s health care reform initiatives. It provides an opportunity to examine delivery system changes that will increase patient care, reduce costs and increase the integration of care,” said Peter Lazes, director of ILR’s Health Care Transformation Project.

Fifteen panels of health care experts from across the nation and Europe will frame conference discussion around three areas:

* Creating integrated delivery systems
* Engaging the work force
* Using technology to improve patient care.

Keynote speakers are Dr. David Skorton, cardiologist and president of Cornell University, and Dr. Jay Crosson of Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Crosson is vice chairman of the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission and former executive director of the Permanente Federation.

Conference presenters include Dr. Rainu Kaushal associate professor of pediatrics, medicine and public health, and chief of the Division of Quality and Medical Informatics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Dr. Julianne Imperato-McGinley, program director of the CTSC at Weill Cornell, and professor of medicine.

Additional speakers include: John August (Kaiser Permanente- Coalition of Unions), Christine Bamford (NHS Whales), Amy Edmundson (Harvard), Suzanne Gordon (Author), John Kenagy (Author), Rob Mechanic (MIT), Steve Spear(MIT) and Paul Starr (Princeton) and union and management leaders and researchers from the United States and Europe.

Presenting hospitals include:

* Allegheny General Hospital (Pittsburgh, PA)
* Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, Ohio)
* Fairview Hospital (Minneapolis, Minn.)
* Hospital of the Future Project (Dublin, Ireland)
* Kaiser Permanente (United States)
* Maimonides Medical Center (Brooklyn)
* Montefiore Medical Center (Bronx)
* NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College (New York City)
* New York City Health and Hospital Corporation
* Skaraborg Hospital Group (Gothenburg, Sweden)
* Villa Beretta Rehabilitation Center (Costa Masnaga, Italy)

The conference will be held at The Italian Academy, 1161 Amsterdam Avenue, New York City, from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. May 11 and 12.

For more information or to register online, go to http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/events/healthCare/. Registration is $295 through March 31 and $350 after March 31.

The conference, co-sponsored by Cornell’s Clinical & Translational Science Center and BALCONY (Business and Labor Coalition of New York), is supported by grants from the Cornell ILR School’s Pierce Memorial Fund, Cornell University’s Institute for the Social Sciences, Cornell University Cooperative Extension New York City and Weill Cornell Medical College.

Click here to link to the conference website for more info and registration: Conference

Click here to see the conference flyer: FLYER

China trade gap displaces 140,000 New York jobs China’s currency manipulation fuels continued trade imbalance.

March 23rd, 2010
Press Release

New York has lost 140,000 predominantly middle-wage manufacturing jobs in recent years as a result of China’s unfair trade practices, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Follow the link to view the full report: Report

BALCONY Access for Small Business Forums

For details on the White Plains Nov. 20, 2009 forum, click here: White Plains

For details on the Rochester Feb. 19, 2010 forum, click here: Rochester

Click here for photos from the Rochester Forum: Rochester Photos

Tom Gillett, Chris Lee, Lou Gordon

Health Care Panel

Rochester Forum: Rep. Chris Lee indicates Fed is growing too big, too fast

By Jim Stinson

A forum on small business became a place to discuss big government and possibly bigger health care plans.

Speaking to the Business and Labor Coalition of New York at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School, U.S. Rep. Chris Lee said the federal government is growing too big and expanding its payroll, and that even during the recession Washington, D.C., saw growth in its gross metropolitan product while many other regional economies were contracting.

“The federal government cannot employ all the people in this country,” said Lee, R-Clarence, Erie County, as he ticked off examples of government growth. For that reason, he said, he voted recently against extending the federal debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion.

But not everyone at Friday’s forum agreed that shrinking all government programs would benefit small business.

Some speakers expressed solidarity with President Barack Obama’s plan for health care reform, which seeks to extend insurance coverage to most Americans.

Lee said after his speech that he supports health care reform, and thinks the Democrats and Republicans should pass a bill they can agree on, leaving out parts on which they differ.

Jim Bertolone, Rochester local president of the American Postal Workers Union, noted that health care costs rose through the past decade, from 15 percent of U.S. gross domestic product to 17 percent of GDP.

To combat rising costs, Bertolone suggested applying a program like Medicare to all citizens. He also said that worrying about budget deficits during a time of unprecedented recession was like conserving water during a house fire.

Businesspeople also received advice from banking officials such as Jeffrey Barker, vice president of commercial services at Canandaigua National Bank & Trust.

He advised the approximately 50 people in the audience to maintain good communication with lending officers and not to surprise them by using a line of credit for reasons other than stated on the application.

Many attendees noted the economy, especially credit conditions, was still sour.

“It is a very difficult time for startups,” Barker acknowledged.

NY suspends construction projects in fiscal crisis

The Associated Press

Albany, NY
March 30, 2010, 4:55PM ET
By MICHAEL GORMLEY

Gov. David Paterson is suspending hundreds of current and new construction projects because of New York’s budget woes, including a highway to Fort Drum and a major interchange on Long Island.

Paterson administration officials told The Associated Press on Tuesday that all projects not paid for by federal economic stimulus funds will be delayed until the Legislature and the governor agree on a 2010-11 budget or emergency funding.

The extraordinary order also tells contractors on existing projects that the state won’t fund any work after the start of the new fiscal year on Thursday until there is a budget or emergency funds. The soonest that could happen is April 7, when the Legislature returns. Or it could come April 14, when an emergency spending appropriation expires.

The order exempts projects that are planned to address “emergency health and safety needs” as certified by the Division of Budget. Contractors were to be notified Tuesday.

The action will be significant for communities statewide where the projects are under way or planned.

Suspending the work will probably result in layoffs and setbacks for local economies. It will also likely put pressure on senators and Assembly members who left Albany this week to take their Passover-Easter vacation without agreeing on a new budget.

“This is a difficult choice and it shows how difficult this is, because these projects do put people to work,” said Timothy Gilchrist, one of Paterson’s senior advisers.

Among the high-profile jobs that will be delayed is a highway connector project to the Fort Drum Army base in northern New York, for which a contract had been awarded Thursday.

Contractors will have to decide whether to go ahead without a flow of state cash as they contemplate the Interstate 87 Exit 6 redesign on the Adirondack Northway in Albany County and the Route 110 interchange project on the Long Island Expressway.

There was no immediate estimate of the number of jobs or the value of projects that will be affected, Gilchrist said.

Paterson threatens layoffs if unions won’t take cuts

Albany Bureau
By Tom Precious
Published: March 30, 2010, 8:59 pm

ALBANY — State workers risk “massive” layoffs later this year if their unions don’t agree to concessions to help the state erase its deficit, the Paterson administration warned Tuesday.

The threat comes as unionized state workers on Thursday are set to see their pay go up by 4 percent — creating an additional $400 million in payroll costs this year — under the terms of a contract negotiated by former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

At a time when public- and private-sector unions around the country have agreed to pay freezes or cuts, the big public employees unions for state workers are refusing to go along with efforts to cut what Gov. David A. Paterson proposed as $250 million in work force savings this year, officials said.

“It’s just frustrating that they won’t even agree to the slightest bit of inconvenience,” said an administration official with knowledge of the talks between the state and its two largest unions — the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation.

“I think they’re disconnected from the real world,” said the administration source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Paterson last year agreed to a no-layoff deal with CSEA and PEF in return for their support of a bill creating a new pension plan — with higher employee costs — for future government hires. But that deal ends Dec. 31, an aide to the governor said, and CSEA and PEF members could face layoff notices and stricter limits on things like overtime pay.

“Their contracts expire next April. I think they’ll have very little public support behind them when the public realizes that when the opportunity came, the unions thumbed their noses at taxpayers and said, “OK, you suffer, I’m not,’ ” the Paterson official said.

Union officials sharply dismissed the claims, and said they have offered ways for the state to cut spending, such as hiring lower-paid state workers to replace private consultants and names of workers willing to take part in a $20,000 buyout offer from the state to leave the payroll.

“This seems to be another measure of this administration’s incompetence and learning disability. They don’t even seem to know what negotiations are,” said Steve Madarasz, a CSEA spokesman. He said Paterson has been talking up the same ideas for nearly two years, and won’t budge on ideas suggested by the union.

“I don’t think they know what they’re doing at this point,” added Darcy Wells, a PEF spokeswoman. “Management 101 is you don’t threaten your employees, the people working hard every day trying to make the administration look good, as if such a thing at this point were possible.”

The unions last year ignored a call by Paterson for a state worker pay freeze and to defer five days’ pay until the worker left the payroll. Unions, the source said, would go along with a five-day pay lag plan, but only if workers could get two additional days’ pay when they quit or retired.

The administration source said the unions recently sought to reopen talks on the contract that expires next April. The official said the unions wanted to extend a contract now for an additional four years to be able to lock in the terms before a new governor takes office on Jan. 1. Paterson is not running this year.

“We flatly rejected that idea. We said we’re not going to tie the next governor’s hands,” the Paterson aide said. “They are scared to death the next governor coming in will still have fiscal problems and will ask the unions for significant givebacks. So they wanted to lock in for another four years to avoid that.”

Wells denied any such move on PEF’s part and Madarasz called the claim a “gross mischaracterization” of negotiations.

“They have said no to being any part of the solution to close a $9.2 billion deficit,” the administration official said of the unions.

Unions aren’t the only ones criticizing Paterson’s plans for the work force. A week ago, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver criticized both the governor’s $250 million plan and $450 million by the Senate Democrats for “work force savings;” neither Paterson nor the Senate, Silver said, provide any explanation for how those savings will be realized.

A Paterson official said it will be difficult to achieve even the $250 million because the unions won’t negotiate. That, the official said, will mean $250 million must be gotten from other areas of the budget.

“Every idea they have offered is basically a plan for the state to hire more state workers, which means raising more union dues,” the official said.

But Wells, the PEF spokeswoman, said the state has ignored most of the 1,000 names it provided of workers willing to take a severance package to leave the payroll. And she said PEF offered a $33 million overtime savings plan, which would include hiring more workers, but at a lower pay than giving overtime to higher-paid workers.

The rhetorical wars by a lameduck administration and state worker unions comes as Paterson and lawmakers are stuck over how to balance the 2010 budget.

Some Democratic lawmakers — who will be having to sell the idea back home of cuts to popular school, health care and other programs — have agreed with the Paterson administration’s assessment of a state work force unwilling to make major concessions to cope with the deficit. But most have done so in private conversations or closed-door meetings among legislators.

The administration’s hands are tied. Unless it breaks a deal it made with CSEA and PEF for the pension bill, it can’t force layoffs. And the existing contracts forbid any pay freeze or salary deferral without union approval.

The Paterson official said it may have to offer an early-retirement incentive to reduce the payroll this year, but said only about 500 people took the last offer. “People may be afraid to leave their jobs in this economy,” the official said.

Fiscal talks with the Legislature have been characterized as stalled at best.

The official said reducing the work force through attrition is an option, but said nearly three-quarters of the payroll is at agencies running prisons and mental health and mental retardation facilities — departments that need to fill jobs to continue critical services.

“They’ve basically thumbed their noses at us,” the official said of talks with unions.

The unions, the official said, have floated ideas such as a tax on transfers of publicly traded stocks — a levy the official said would damage Wall Street at a critical time in the economy.

The unions were perplexed for the timing of the rhetorical hit by the administration. “We realize we’re a target in the public,” Wells said. But she said the state should more seriously consider the union’s ideas for payroll savings. “We’re taxpayers, too,” she said of PEF

NYSUT head says delayment is ‘unconscionable’

March 30, 2010 at 4:33 pm by Jimmy Vielkind

Richard Iannuzzi, the president of New York State United Teachers, says his group will be going ahead with a lawsuit challenging Gov. David Paterson’s right to delay payments to school districts. Paterson today said he is postponing $2.1 billion due to be paid tomorrow.

“The case will go forward, and obviously we have to get a decision as to whether this is a permissible step. But putting legal arguments aside, there’s an ethical and a moral question here: it’s unconscionable and immoral to tell a superintendent the day before a check is due that it’s not coming,” Iannuzzi told me by phone. He said the delays might force districts to borrow money, and said it would stretch budgets not built for an unexpected shock.

“If you can’t meet payroll and you can’t keep the lights on and you can’t buses to the school and you can’t feed kids, are you going to be able to keep your doors open?” Iannuzzi said. “Potentially, that’s the chaos that the governor has created.”

UFT CELEBRATES 50 YEARS

By: Summer Brennan

Michael Mulgrew, President of UFT with President Bill Clinton

Fifty years ago, teachers in New York City’s public schools didn’t have the kind of support and respect they have today. Before the creation of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) in March 1960, the system’s structure and support were haphazard at best, and concepts such as class-size limits and career ladders were only pipe dreams. A patchwork of more than 100 different and often competing organizations were available for educators to join, but there was no one true voice and advocate for students and teachers.

That all changed, thanks to the grit and determination of a small group of visionaries who believed that educators and their students were being shortchanged and did something about it. Together, they created the UFT.

The following 50 years of triumphs and advocacy have strengthened the education profession and New York City public schools. The UFT now represents approximately 200,000 people, and is the sole bargaining agent for most of the non-supervisory educators who work in the New York City public schools. It represents approximately 87,000 teachers and 19,000 classroom paraprofessionals, along with school secretaries, attendance teachers, guidance counselors, psychologists, social workers, education evaluators, nurses, laboratory technicians, adult education teachers and 53,000 retired members.

“From the beginning, UFT members have been making positive contributions to this city,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “We’ve moved the system forward during good times and bad. The profession has come so far in 50 years, and it’s important for people to know about that journey.”

To celebrate the golden jubilee of the union, more than 3,000 members of the UFT “family” gathered at the New York Hilton on March 25th for a gala event.

President Bill Clinton, who worked closely with AFT Presidents Al Shanker and Sandra Feldman during his presidency, was on hand to accept a check for $100,000 in UFT member donations to support his foundation’s work in Haiti.

“There’s not a person alive today who’s ever made anything of herself or himself that cannot point to somewhere between one and a dozen teachers without whom they would not have been made,” Clinton said.

In his opening remarks, Mulgrew reminded the audience of some of the UFT’s signal achievements: organizing paraprofessionals 40 years ago, saving the city from bankruptcy during the 1970s fiscal crisis, fighting for smaller class sizes, helping to create more effective programs such as the Chancellor’s District, founding the Dial-a-Teacher homework help line that responds to 1,000 calls for help a day, and battling the disinvestment in public education.

“We do it for the children,” he said. “Never let them forget it.”

Saratoga Capital Management, LLC Wins Lipper Fund Award

Saratoga Capital Management, LLC recently won the Lipper Fund Award for the Best Fund Over 5 Years in the Lipper Science and Technology Funds category.

Budget extenders pass Senate

March 29, 2010 at 11:42 am
By Jimmy Vielkind

The Senate passed four bills extending the functions of state government, with Republicans voting as a block against one of them and a handful dissenting on others. Sen. Mike Ranzenhofer, a Buffalo-area Republican, was the only senator to vote against all four pieces of legislation.

Sen. Tom Libous, R-Binghamton, said he was concerned the passage of the bills (and a resulting recess) do not bode well for the negotiations on an overall budget.

“You shouldn’t be doing extenders until 11:59 on Wednesday night, I believe that’s the 31st,” Libous said. “People should have the right to go, those who need to celebrate their religious holidays I don’t deprive them of that, but the palce shouldn’t be shut down because of it. What’s disappointing here is that you have the Decmorats in control of both houses. You know, it’s Monday and nothing’s getting done. Tomorrow’s Tuesday, and then Wednesday — nothing’s going to happen here until we come back on the 7th, and it’s a long time. The public deserves better.”

Democratic Senate Conference Leader John Sampson said senators are working through the week, and that he will meet with Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch on Wednesday. He rebuffed charges that work has been slow.

“With all due respect to our governor, we weren’t fooling anybody: we were working,” Sampson said. “Our members understand with the situation that we’re in we have to make the right decisions, because the decisions that we make are really going to impact a lot of New Yorkers. So we weren’t fooling around. We don’t take our duties lightly at all.”