Walmart refuses to back down in New York location case, launches ad campaign against city council

By Adam Lisberg

Walmart has a message for the City Council: you don’t matter anymore.

It’s a provocative stance for the nation’s biggest retailer to take, as the Council prepares for a hearing Thursday on Walmart’s push to finally open stores in the city.

Walmart won’t be there. Instead, it’s launching a new ad campaign taking aim at the Council, some labor unions and other groups that are trying to block it.

“You don’t ask the special interests or the political insiders for permission to use the bathroom,” says a mailer going to homes in 10 Council districts this week. “So why should they decide where you’re allowed to shop?”

Similar ads will air on radio stations and in community newspapers. It’s a sharper tone than Walmart has taken before – and signals that while Walmart will pillory its opponents, it won’t bother engaging with them.

“The key message here is that New Yorkers should decide where they shop and work,” said Walmart spokesman Steven Restivo. “Some of the louder voices in the debate don’t represent the interests of New Yorkers.”

The company is looking for sites that don’t need zoning changes or government permits – challenges that have successfully kept it out of New York so far.

It hopes to open stores far smaller than suburban locations, some the size of neighborhood gorceries. And it has convinced construction unions to part company with grocery unions and support them.

Meanwhile, it has relied on its opinion polls – and the credit card records from city residents who shop at Walmarts in Valley Strea, L.I., and Secaucus, N.J. – to conclude New York is a huge untapped market.

Many Council members, grocery unions, women’s groups and other interests hope to block Walmart, saying it pays workers too little, discriminates against women and gays, blocks unions and drives out mom-and-pop businesses.

“We are in the people’s interest. Walmart is a special interest,” said Stuart Appelbaum of the Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Union, which represents grocery store employees. “They’re transferring the cost of doing business to taxpayers when we have to pick up the tab for health care and inadequate wages.”

Council Speaker Christine Quinn said Walmart’s decision to buy ads instead of answering questions at a hearing shows they are afraid.

“People can run whatever ads they want,” Quinn said. “It really speaks volumes that they’re not willing to show up in front of government and answer questions.”

The ad campaign, however, is aimed at winning support in the public mind – not in the Council. To Walmart, the Council and its traditional allies are increasingly irrelevant.

This comes as union membership in New York is declining, as a once-iconoclastic city fills with Targets and McDonalds, and as the Council legislates about dog leashes and movie trailers while Mayor Bloomberg wields the real power.

So Walmart sees no downside in ignoring the Council and its traditional allies. If Walmart wins this battle, they’ll have proved the strategy works.

Mayor Warns of Mass Teacher Layoffs

By MICHAEL HOWARD SAUL

New York City could lose $1 billion in education aid from the state, forcing the nation’s largest school system to cut more than 21,000 teachers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Friday.

As Gov. Andrew Cuomo prepares to unveil his first budget proposal since taking office on New Year’s Day, Mr. Bloomberg and his new schools chancellor, Cathie Black, are bracing for what could be devastating cuts to city schools.

On his weekly radio show Friday, Mr. Bloomberg stressed that he has yet to receive word of a definitive budget proposal from the governor. “Scuttlebutt is that the education budget will be cut statewide, and New York City’s share of that would be a billion-dollar cut,” he said.

If the governor proposes a $1 billion cut and the Legislature approves it, the mayor estimated the city would be forced to cut 15,000 teachers, most of which would be accomplished through layoffs. That’s on top of plans, outlined by the mayor in November, to cut 6,166 teachers in the fiscal year beginning July 1.

In total, the administration is facing the specter of losing 21,000 teachers in the coming months, most through layoffs. An aide to the mayor warned that these numbers would probably change as negotiations with lawmakers over the state and city budgets begin in earnest in the coming weeks.

The city’s Department of Education currently employs roughly 75,000 teachers.

Josh Vlasto, a spokesman for Mr. Cuomo, said it’s “premature to speculate about the budget” that the governor will release Tuesday. He declined to comment further.

A seniority rule in state law requires that the teachers hired most recently be the first to face layoffs. As a result, city officials estimate that every teacher hired during the past five years would be let go if the state moves forward with a $1 billion cut in aid to city schools.

Mr. Bloomberg said this tenure rule means the city will “have to part company with some of the best teachers.” And because new teachers are typically employed in communities that are struggling the most, these layoffs would “disproportionately hurt the schools with more minorities,” he said.

The mayor and his new chancellor have launched an intense lobbying campaign to persuade the state to change the law regarding last in, first out.

On Friday, Ms. Black said she would “fight tooth and nail to keep the best teachers in the classrooms. It cannot be about whether a teacher has been in the system for two years or 22 years.”

If the seniority law remains in place, parts of the South Bronx could lose 27% of their teachers due to the prevalence of rookie teachers in the area, she said. Other more affluent neighborhoods would lose half that.

“The budget situation is very dire, and any major cutbacks are going to translate into real job losses,” said Ms. Black, adding that she and the mayor will fight as hard as they can to avert as many teacher layoffs as possible.

But Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, criticized the mayor and Ms. Black for focusing attention on the seniority issue.

“It seems the mayor and chancellor know a lot about how they want to fight for how to do layoffs—and not fight for the children of New York City to not do layoffs,” Mr. Mulgrew said.

“No matter what happens, if we do layoffs, kids are going to get hurt,” said Mr. Mulgrew, who argued that the state should maintain a tax on people earning more than $200,000 that is set to expire at year-end.

Mr. Mulgrew said the seniority laws are in place to guard against layoff decisions based on age, race, gender or cronyism. “Perhaps the mayor likes cronyism,” he said, a pointed reference to his controversial selection of Ms. Black, a former media executive with no prior experience in education.

City Council Member Robert Jackson, chairman of the council’s Education Committee, described the possibility of reducing the number of teachers by 21,000 as “absolutely insane, crazy.” These types of cuts would be “devastating” and “just outrageous,” he said.

“The governor has to look at whether or not the whole system is going to collapse,” said Mr. Jackson, pledging to fight to restore the budget cuts. “Class size will be up to 35, 40 kids in a class, if you have to cut 21,000 teaching positions. I can’t imagine it, quite frankly.”

On Friday, the mayor said he’s sympathetic to the governor, who is scrambling to combat a deficit of roughly $10 billion.

“Andrew Cuomo was brought in to balance the budget. He didn’t create the situation. But he’s got to deal with it,” he said. “And it’s Medicaid and education—two things everybody says don’t cut. But those are the things where all the money is.”

“But it’s going to hurt,” Mr. Bloomberg added. “Unless we can find something else, it’s going to cost us an awful lot of jobs.”

Mr. Bloomberg is scheduled to present his preliminary budget for the upcoming fiscal year by mid-February. The mayor is looking to fill a gap of $2.4 billion. But as his budget director, Mark Page, testified last month, that gap could swell to $4.4 billion depending on how much aid Albany cuts to the city.

Poster Campaign Seeks to Reduce Violence Against Nurses:
New York State Nurses Association, HANYS, and NYONE seek to draw attention to the issue

JANUARY 27, 2011, Albany, NY — The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), the New York Organization of Nurse Executives (NYONE) and the Healthcare Association of New York State (HANYS) have partnered to produce and distribute a poster designed to raise awareness of the serious problem of violence against nurses and support safer working environments in healthcare facilities. The poster, which is being mailed to hospitals and healthcare facilities around the state, informs people that it is a felony to assault a nurse who is on duty.

“Many people don’t realize the magnitude of the problem of violence against nurses. We hope that this clear, visual reminder of the legal consequences will encourage people to take a step back when situations get hot,” said Tina Gerardi, MS, RN, CAE, CEO of the Nurses Association, the state’s largest professional association and union for registered nurses.

The poster features a red stop sign on a black background with the text: “Assaulting a nurse is a shame. And it’s a crime. It’s a felony in New York State to assault a nurse on duty.”

The law that makes it a felony to assault a registered nurse (RN) or licensed practical nurse (LPN) while on duty went into effect on November 1, 2010. A number of factors, including the fact that many healthcare facilities are open and accessible 24 hours a day, that nurses are often relatively isolated in their work, the availability of medications, and the innate stress of a healthcare setting, combine to create situations in which nurses experience a very high risk of violence at work. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nearly 500,000 nurses a year are victims of workplace violence.

“Every nurse deserves to be safe at work, but a safe work environment not only benefits nurses, it is also good for patients,” said Claire Murray, MS, RN, CNAA, executive director of NYONE, a professional organization for nurses who design, facilitate, influence, and manage healthcare services in New York State.

“Healthcare institutions across New York are committed to the safety of employees and preventing violence in the workplace. We fully support this effort to raise awareness of the serious issue, and we urge facilities to display these posters prominently,” said Daniel Sisto, president of HANYS, a non-profit organization representing New York State’s healthcare systems and hospitals.

HANYS, the only statewide hospital and continuing care association in New York State, represents more than 550 non-profit and public hospitals, nursing homes, home care agencies, and other healthcare organizations.

NYONE is the professional organization for nurses who design, facilitate, influence, and manage healthcare services in New York State. NYONE has as a goal to recruit members who are leaders from academia, long term care, home care, acute care and other service organizations to broaden and enrich our membership.

NYSNA is the voice for nursing in the Empire State. With more than 37,000 members, it is the state’s largest professional association and union for registered nurses. It supports nurses and nursing practice through education, research, legislative advocacy, and collective bargaining.

MagnaCare Partners with Coventry Health Care, Expands Workers’ Compensation Access to Network in New York State

NEW YORK, N.Y./Franklin, Tenn. – November 12, 2010 – An agreement announced between MagnaCare, a national health plan services company, and Coventry Workers’ Comp Services, a division of Coventry Health Care, Inc., will make the MagnaCare provider network available to new and existing Coventry clients in the State of New York beginning in November 2010. This relationship expands the Coventry Recommendation of Care (ROC) offering in New York, bringing greater depth and breadth to this voluntary option that allows injured workers to seek care with network providers and enables payers to reimburse providers based upon contractual rates.

“We are confident that this partnership will provide expanded access to care along with optimal savings opportunities for Coventry clients and their workers who experience on-the-job injuries,” says Steven Kokulak, vice president of workers’ compensation and no-fault at MagnaCare. “The ROC Network is an ideal alternative for employers and carriers that do not want to utilize a Certified PPO, or who do not have access to a Certified PPO, in all counties”.

MagnaCare and Coventry, which offers its Certified PPO through its wholly-owned subsidiary MetraComp, will both continue to offer their Certified PPO products independent of each other.

Bruce Singleton, senior vice president of provider network product development at Coventry, adds, “While we have long offered our ROC Network, we wanted to provide the most comprehensive network in terms of access and reimbursement rates. The addition of the MagnaCare network to our offering means that Coventry clients will have a broader network for referring their injured workers, while achieving the best possible savings. This translates into real value.”

MagnaCare began contracting with providers, more than fifteen years ago, requiring them to accept the same rate of payment from all payers, regardless of the reason for the care. The Network is designed to provide the same quality care, at the same price, whether the medical condition was personal, auto-related, or work-related. This allows MagnaCare to offer significant discounts, below state fee schedule on services provided to their No-Fault and Workers’ Compensation customers.

Media Contact:
Alyson Kuritz
CPR Communications for MagnaCare
akuritz@cpronline.com
201-641-1911×51

About MagnaCare
MagnaCare is a health plan management company that touches millions of lives nationwide. For over 20 years MagnaCare has provided solutions to Taft Hartley funds, self-insured companies, commercial insurers such as health, workers compensation, or no fault, TPA’s, and government entities. Whether it’s access to a broad provider network, predictive modeling analyses, member outreach programs or an integrated solution that includes full plan management services including claims adjudication, eligibility management, client/customer service, and a full suite of products, MagnaCare understands its customer needs and develops cost effective, comprehensive solutions. Visit www.magnacare.com www.facebook.com/magnacare www.twitter.com/magnacare
About Coventry Workers’ Comp Services
Coventry Workers’ Comp Services, a division of Coventry Health Care, Inc., is the leading provider of cost and care management solutions for property and casualty insurance carriers, (workers’ compensation and auto insurers), third-party administrators and self-insured employers. We design best-in-class products and services to help our partners restore the health and productivity of injured workers and insureds as quickly and as cost effectively as possible. We accomplish this by developing and maintaining consultative, trusting partnerships with our clients and stakeholders, built on a foundation of innovative and customized solutions that support the claims management process. Go to www.coventrywcs.com for more information.

NYC Central Labor Council’s Response to Mayor Bloomberg’s State of the City

By John T. Ahern, President NYCCLC

January 21, 2011

In his remarks yesterday (1/19/2011) Mayor Bloomberg took up what has become a trendy political mantra – blame working Americans for the current state of economic affairs. He essentially called for forced concessions as a prerequisite for new contracts. We strongly object to this tactic.

In times of crisis New York’s unions have consistently stepped up to provide assistance. In fact the city was saved from bankruptcy in the 1970’s because unions helped forge a robust recovery.

We look forward to working with the Mayor and the City Council to find constructive solutions to today’s problems. We will not however stand back and allow our members, the hard working New Yorkers who are the backbone of this great city, to be scapegoated as the cause of those problems.

N.Y.’s wealthy must sacrifice, too: Assemblyman calls on Cuomo to extend income tax surcharge

By Assemblyman Rory Lancman , January 5th 2011

Today, a new Legislature will convene, a new governor will give his State of the State address – and the process of closing a projected $10 billion dollar gap in next year’s budget will formally begin.

We all know there will be austerity. The dominant political narrative is of New York as an exceptionally profligate state that doles out far more in benefits and services than is reasonable or right. This idea persists even though virtually every state in the Union has faced significant budget shortfalls since Wall Street melted down in 2008, and around half of those states saw shortfalls greater than New York’s.

But even if you believe that our state spends and taxes way too much, the key question in digging out of our deficit hole is whether our coming austerity will be matched by equity – equity not merely in how we cut, but from whom we expect sacrifice.

There’s a stark choice. In fact, a variation of the recent wrenching national debate on extending tax cuts for millionaires is about to play out in New York, as a temporary personal income tax rate increase on high-income earners will expire in the coming fiscal year. Under the surcharge, enacted in 2009, individual filers earning between $200,000 and $500,000, and married couples earning between $300,000 and $500,000, pay a rate that’s 1 point higher (7.85% instead of 6.85%); filers above $500,000 pay a rate that’s 2.12 points higher (8.97% instead of 6.85%).

While fewer than 3% of New York households pay this surcharge, its expiration will add nearly $5 billion to our annual budget deficit unless it is renewed by the Legislature and governor.

Some, Gov. Cuomo included, think it’s wrong to keep a temporary tax surcharge on anyone rather than confront Albany’s real problem: excessive spending.

But there’s another point of view.

Yes, New York State’s spending will face a hard look, across the board. Medicaid and education, which account for more than half of state spending, will be squeezed not just of waste, but of real meat: Nursing homes and hospitals will probably close. Classrooms will get more crowded, and after-school programs will face elimination. Resources available to local governments will also face cuts, not merely by reductions in state aid but as a consequence of the limit on local property taxes that is surely coming.

Even if many of these cuts may be, in the long run, necessary, the real test of our leadership will be this: If austerity demands sacrifices for the common good from the vulnerable, will it ask anything of the wealthiest among us?

Wall Street is booming, with well over $20 billion in profits for New York financial firms in 2010. But the nearly 19 million New Yorkers who don’t work on Wall Street are getting shellacked by this economy. Unemployment is up in 11 of the state’s 13 metro areas outside of New York City.

And guess what? Contrary to the assertion made when the surcharge was instituted that the higher tax rate would force high earners out of the state, that hasn’t come to pass. That’s why the city’s market for luxury rentals of $15,000 per month or more has doubled in the past year, and apartment sales of over $3 million are up more than 35% – and the surcharge is collecting billions for the state.

Imposing sacrifices on schoolkids, college students, the infirm and mass transit riders – while leaving those in the upper reaches of our economy untouched – would be worse than the perverse compromise imposed on President Obama by the Republican minority in the U.S. Senate, under which the unemployed were allowed to keep their benefits only if the millionaires were allowed to keep their tax cuts. There, at least the little people got something out of the deal.

Here in New York, asking for anything less than true shared sacrifice is inequitable, and ought to be intolerable.

Lancman is an assemblyman representing Queens.

Bloomberg Pension Plans Could Face a Big Obstacle: Albany

In his State of the City speech, Mayor Michael Bloomberg hoped to distract focus from his administration’s recent missteps by offering new initiatives. Whether or not that worked, the address earned Bloomberg the ire of unions and many of their members.

In his speech Bloomberg said he intends to do away with the requirement that the newest teachers will be the first laid off and to take away variable supplement fund payments (otherwise known as holiday bonuses) for uniformed city workers. Complaining that the city simply could no longer afford the cost of its pension, Bloomberg declared, “Today I will make this commitment. I will not sign a contract with salary increases unless they are accompanied by reforms in benefit packages that produce the savings we need to continue making investments in our future and protecting vital services.”

The mayor, in his typically brash style, made his point and got his reaction, but as Bloomberg has learned before that doesn’t mean he will get his way in Albany. If he wants that, legislators say, he will have to negotiate with the unions he has so angered.

The legislature has never been particularly kind to Bloomberg. He has had his victories — winning and renewing mayoral control of schools, approval of Tier 5 pensions for teachers– but he has also met with major defeats; congestion pricing and a bailout for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority are examples of the latter.

So what are the odds the mayor will get what he wants this time around?

A Tough Time for Unions

It certainly can’t hurt that Gov. Andrew Cuomo — the man with a 70 percent approval rating — has made it his priority to get concessions from unions and harps on how union benefits drive up the state’s $11 billion deficit. Cuomo issued a supportive statement after the State of the City.

“Mayor Bloomberg has laid out an innovative and realistic agenda to position his administration to aggressively address the critical challenges facing New Yorkers. He rightly recognizes that government has to do more with less and that during these difficult times, tough choices and sacrifice are required. I look forward to working with him to restore and revitalize the city’s economy and put New Yorkers back to work,” it said.

As Sen. Diane Savino puts it, “The mayor is getting a lot of help from Gov. Cuomo and the New York Post.” He will also have the assistance of Mayor Ed Koch, who plans to use his group NY Uprising to lobby Albany for pension changes on the mayor’s behalf.

The increasing tide of anti-union sentiment that is becoming quite popular also should bolster Bloomberg’s chances, as will the Republicans taking control of the Senate. In general, the GOP legislators favor reducing labor’s influence of labor, and the party has received significant donations from Bloomberg. While Senate Republicans didn’t do Bloomberg a lot of favors while they were the minority party — they voted against a number of measures the mayor supported including microstamping for handguns and the MTA bailout — But it seems likely that the labors issues are something Republican senators can get behind.

Senate Democrats may do what they can to block them. One, new Sen. Gustavo Rivera, said while he supports Bloomberg’s comments on immigration during his speech, he didn’t like what he heard regarding labor and pensions. “I wouldn’t call what he was talking about pension reform. What I heard I would call pension erosion,” Rivera said.

Rivera said that he thinks the approach by both Bloomberg and Cuomo is backward. “When we start by talking about cuts right away I think we have to stop and think about revenues. Like I said I am supportive of the mayor in a lot of his agenda but I didn’t hear him talk about the financial divide in the city — about pay equality,” he said. “Wages for the middle class have been stagnant for a while and the rich keep getting richer.”

Savino, one of four Democrats who have split from their party’s Senate leadership and a former union organizer, said that while Democrats are traditionally more supportive of labor than Republicans, she doesn’t think it will matter who is in the majority.

“Albany has been reluctant to get involved in the past when there isn’t an agreement,” Savino said. She thinks the mayor needs to do what he did to get Tier 5 approved for teachers last year: negotiate with the unions and make concessions.

And she thinks he might be able to do that. “I don’t think unions are tone deaf,” said Savino, “They are willing to negotiate.”

Silver’s Support

If labor opposes one of Bloomberg’s measures they will almost certainly be able to jam it up in the Assembly, where they the enjoy great support from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. “The labor unions are very visible in Albany and they have a lot of sway in my conference,” said Assemblyman and former City Councilmember David Weprin.

Weprin echoed Savino’s sentiments, saying that, for the mayor’s ideas to gain traction in the capital, there would need to be union support and good faith negotiations.

“I think we would be much more willing to accept something as long as there have been negotiations, but if we go into this with the unions opposed and an adversarial situation with the unions saying, ‘This is unfair,’ I think the mayor will have a hard time getting what he wants from my conference,” he said.

Rivera echoed the need for the mayor to talk with labor, saying said that he would not consider allowing the mayor to reduce pension benefits or giving him new negotiating rights without having Bloomberg come to an agreement with the unions. “If the unions reach a deal with the governor or the mayor then I would be supportive of that,” he said, “but I think they need to start by negotiating because it was hard fought for working people to get these benefits in the first place.”

Weprin said many of his colleagues believe that retirement and pension perks help drive people to public service. Cutting such benefits, they fear, would reduce the pool of talent available to the public sector. “Lots of my colleagues in my conference feel that people go into public service for these pay packages — the pension and retirement — and feel we need to keep them to be competitive with the private sector and attract people to public service.” he said.

Bloomberg tried to acknowledge that in his speech. I’ve always believed city workers deserve a safe and secure retirement,” Bloomberg said, “but right now, they receive retirement benefits that are far more generous than those received by most workers in the private sector.”

The Labor Line

If Bloomberg needs union support to make his plans a reality, he may face a tough challenge. The reaction of union heads to the State of the City did not indicate that they are rushing to negotiate and make concessions to the mayor.

A number of union heads said that blaming unions for rising pension costs is unfair and it is Wall Street that should take the blame for mismanaging pensions “His friends on Wall Street created this problem, but the mayor won’t join us in changing the law to let us sue to the people who lost the money,” said United Federation of Teachers president Michael Mulgrew.

Mulgrew said he was “disgusted” with Bloomberg’s reasoning for changing the first in last out provision, adding, “I have never heard a mayor say that people should be laid off on the basis of salary.”

When asked if he supported anything the mayor said in his speech, Mulgrew said, “In terms of education, I support nothing, which he said today.”

Patrick Lynch president of the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said that he doesn’t plan on giving up what Bloomberg calls “holiday bonuses.”

“The Variable Supplement Fund benefit — what the mayor refers to as a holiday bonus — was bought and paid for by New York City police officers, having been derived from a collective bargaining agreement that benefited both the city and our members,” said Lynch in a statement. “Police officers gave over $75 million up front and in excess of a billion dollars of surplus pension earnings over the years to the city’s coffers while a small portion was shared with our members in a defined benefit. Having realized billions in benefits, the city now wants to renege on the agreement. We intend to hold them to it.”

If what legislators say is true, Bloomberg has a lot of work on his hands to mend fences and begin good faith negotiations with the unions — otherwise his plans may be dead in the water.

“The mayor has said he wants to negotiate — so I would suggest that he get out there and try to negotiate,” said Savino. “He would have much easier time getting something through that way.”

PEF statement on reports of massive workforce reductions

Albany – “To date, the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) has had no formal notification
regarding proposals for massive workforce reductions as part of the Executive Budget proposal,” said PEF President Kenneth Brynien.

“We all understand the state’s fiscal crisis and the need to find solutions, but any suggestion of reducing the state workforce by 10,000 to 15,000 would not only cripple the delivery of essential services, it would have a chilling effect on the state’s economy and undermine the state’s fragile recovery. We should all be working together to create jobs, not more layoffs.

“If the goal is to cut costs, PEF has several suggestions on how to achieve savings without damaging state services and harming the dedicated public employees who provide them. What cannot be lost in this debate is this is not just a spending problem, it is a revenue problem. We will present our suggestions to the governor on how to address both issues,” Brynien said.

PEF is the state’s second-largest, state-employee union, representing 56,000 professional, scientific and technical employees.

Mayor Focuses on Small Things in His State of City Speech

by David W. Chen and Javier C. Hernandez

There was barely any nod to Manhattan. Nor any mention of the economic virtues of Wall Street, or much talk about national politics.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg sought on Wednesday to shore up his relationship with his constituents and make the case that he was still fully engaged in his third term.

In a speech notable for what was not said, Mr. Bloomberg, delivering his 10th State of the City address, went out of his way to keep the theme distinctly parochial by highlighting neighborhood projects, unveiling proposals aimed at helping small businesses and pledging not to raise taxes.

Mr. Bloomberg also made a concerted effort to rebut criticism that he was ignoring the boroughs outside Manhattan. Beyond paying homage to the refurbished St. George Theater on Staten Island, where he delivered his speech, the mayor referred repeatedly to his administration’s efforts to revitalize Brooklyn (a new amusement area in Coney Island), Queens (a real estate project at Hunters Point) and the Bronx (a new fishing pier at Hunts Point Landing).

But the mayor did not utter a word about the snowstorm last month that unleashed widespread criticism when streets in many neighborhoods went unplowed for days. The address was devoid of big, sweeping initiatives, in part because of Mr. Bloomberg’s admonition that “money is tight — very tight.” But in one of several small-scale initiatives that dominated his agenda, he promised to spare restaurants that received an “A” on health inspections from being fined for any violations uncovered by the inspection.

Mr. Bloomberg, stepping up his populist attacks on Albany and public-sector unions, also vowed to push even harder for pension overhauls. He pledged not to sign any labor agreement that included salary increases unless it was accompanied by a promise to cut benefit packages.

Not only did Mr. Bloomberg mostly avoid two favorite topics, Wall Street and national politics, he also tried to be a bit self-deprecating — hardly a familiar character trait — by opening with a light-hearted video of the Staten Island groundhog that bit his finger in 2009.

“He is my good friend,” the groundhog said, in a voice-over provided by a human actor.

Given the frequency with which Mr. Bloomberg mentioned neighborhood issues — including a much-publicized proposal to allow livery cars to make on-street pickups outside of Manhattan — it seemed, at times, almost more of a State of the Borough speech than a citywide one.

Mr. Bloomberg may have been trying to prove to his naysayers that he was not aloof, distracted or out of touch, as he has been recently portrayed. One recent poll indicated that Mr. Bloomberg’s popularity had tumbled noticeably in the wake of his administration’s response to the Christmas weekend blizzard, a payroll accounting scandal and his selection of Cathleen P. Black, a publishing executive with little education background, as the new schools chancellor.

Still, on Wednesday, Mr. Bloomberg did not apologize, though he has done so in the past. And that was disappointing to some, including Bill de Blasio, the city’s public advocate, who said that the mayor had missed an opportunity to regain confidence.

“It’s part of leadership to acknowledge mistakes,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It would have been cleansing.”

Instead, in an address that ran about 45 minutes, Mr. Bloomberg did offer a low-key, and less grandiose, presentation than he had earlier in his tenure. He proposed, for instance, to construct family centers at Rikers Island and improve the juvenile justice system. He also proposed, under a plan led by Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, online forums for city employees to exchange ideas to improve services or save money.

He was most impassioned when talking about immigration reform, and beseeching Albany lawmakers to allow the city to manage more of its affairs on its own. And for his long-running battle to reform the pensions system, he announced that he had enlisted the help of former Mayor Edward I. Koch.

Union leaders did not take kindly to Mr. Bloomberg’s words. Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said he was disappointed that the mayor spent little time talking about education. He also took offense at Mr. Bloomberg’s warning over contracts, considering that the teachers’ union is now in the middle of negotiations.

“It shows a lack of professionalism,” Mr. Mulgrew said. “I think he was trying to get cheap political points considering what’s happened with his administration recently.”

Harry Nespoli, chairman of the Municipal Labor Committee, the umbrella group of unions representing city workers, said, “Lowering benefits, changing layoff seniority for teachers and returning civil service to the Tammany Hall era will not produce one job.”

Some elected officials were dubious of Mr. Bloomberg’s sincerity. City Councilman Daniel J. Halloran, a Republican from Queens, said: “The outer boroughs need more than livery cabs. We need the attention of city services. We need capital investment, better school funding, and to be treated as equals with the inner borough.”

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said that Mr. Bloomberg had unveiled “an innovative and realistic agenda” and that “he rightly recognizes that government has to do more with less and that during these difficult times, tough choices and sacrifice are required.”

City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a Queens Democrat who had criticized Mr. Bloomberg over the snowstorm response, said: “The mayor laid out a very powerful agenda which reminded people why they elected him. He didn’t give a ‘feel good’ speech; he gave a ‘get real’ speech, which New Yorkers needed to hear.”

Cuomo Considers Cutting Up to 15,000 State Jobs

by Nicholas Confessore

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is considering reducing the state workforce by up to 15,000 workers in his budget, the largest cut to the government payroll in recent years, two people briefed on the plan said Wednesday night.

The prospective cuts are likely to accompany large reductions in Medicaid and state education spending, those people said, as Mr. Cuomo and his administration seek to close a projected budget gap of more than $9 billion.

But the cuts would represent a substantial downsizing of the state’s workforce, including clerical workers, state troopers and park rangers. And that belt-tightening would almost certainly be accompanied by noticeable reductions in government services, though it is hard to predict where and how much until Mr. Cuomo releases his proposed budget in early February.

Mr. Cuomo has made trimming the state’s far-flung bureaucracy a top priority of his new administration, hoping to reduce costs to taxpayers and root out waste. Along with Medicaid and education spending, money for so-called “state operations,” including payroll, health and pension benefits, is one of the larger portions of spending borne directly by New York taxpayers.

But layoffs of the magnitude the governor is considering are likely to spur a major counterattack from unions that represent state workers, who have in recent years agreed to concessions that would reduce long-term pension costs but sharply resisted calls by Mr. Cuomo’s predecessor, David A. Paterson, to agree to downsizing the state workforce or other cost-saving measures.

Mr. Paterson’s efforts drew a blistering response from two of the state’s most powerful unions, who picketed the Capitol and mobilized their thousands of members to forestall further cuts. The state laid off more than 900 workers on Dec. 31 after a no-layoff pact between the unions and Mr. Paterson expired.

Representatives of those unions have so far held their fire, however, where Mr. Cuomo is concerned, and indicated on Wednesday that they would wait to hear more information before wading in.

“We’re not going to respond to speculation at this point. When he has a proposal to make, we’ll respond to it appropriately,” said Stephen Madarasz, a spokesman for the Civil Services Employees Association. “Abstract numbers without any context don’t tell us very much.”

Mr. Cuomo has already called for a one-year salary freeze for state employees and to shrink the number of state agencies and departments by 20 percent, efforts that could save money over the long term but would most likely have a far lower impact on the bottom line for next fiscal year’s budget. It was not clear whether the reductions being contemplated would be achieved entirely through layoffs or through a mix of layoffs, attrition and early retirement incentives.

The job cuts being considered would be the largest in at least 15 years, potentially even longer, but not unprecedented. The state workforce that is directly controlled by the governor has shrunk from about 174,000 in 1990 to about 132,000 last March, according to statistics from the state Division of the Budget.

The cuts that Mr. Cuomo is contemplating would probably not affect workers at the state’s tangled web of public authorities, which employ additional tens of thousands of workers while raising and spending billions of dollars in revenue outside the control of elected officials.

Mr. Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, undertook steep job cuts in the early 1990’s as the state faced an earlier financial storm. Many of those job cuts, however, were achieved through attrition and early retirement incentives, as well as layoffs.