Statement of PEF President Ken Brynien

Albany – The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) is prepared to present to the state new ideas which we believe will lead to a tentative contract agreement that will meet everyone’s needs and our members will ratify.

Although the governor has said he will not change the state’s proposal we remain hopeful we can reach an agreement. The next few days will be critical as we try to preserve state services while meeting the savings the state requires.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 56,000 professional, scientific and technical (PS&T) employees and other public and private employees. The contract covers the PS&T employees.

PEF Members Reject Tentative Agreement

Albany – For the first time in the 34 year history of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF), members voted to reject the tentative agreement negotiated with the state.

Nearly 70 percent of the membership voted, resulting in a “No” vote by a count of 19629 to 16906.

“PEF’s ratification process is very democratic,” said PEF President Ken Brynien.

“The decision to reject the tentative agreement was made by our rank-and-file members who clearly feel they are being
asked to sacrifice more than others, particularly in light of the pending expiration of the state’s millionaire’s tax.

“We will ask the governor to direct his negotiators to immediately return to the bargaining table to work out an agreement which our members will ratify. We are calling on the governor to resist laying off thousands of our members as he has threatened and, instead, work with us to identify savings that would preserve the state’s depleted workforce and services, especially during this economic downturn and in light of the recent flooding,” said Brynien.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 56,000 professional scientific and technical (PS&T)
employees and other public and private employees. The contract covers the state’s PS&T employees.

For state, labor deals fall short

Major labor union deals help, but state still has a way to go to reach savings target

By CASEY SEILER State editor

ALBANY — Recent tentative agreements reached by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s negotiators and the state’s two largest public employee unions will achieve an estimated $148 million in savings in the current fiscal year, which ends in March.

But while that’s not exactly lunch money, it’s still only a third of the way to Cuomo’s workforce savings target for the current fiscal year.

The savings would come from a lack of broad-based salary increases, plus health care givebacks such as an increase in the share of insurance premiums paid for by workers and retirees. The full five-year agreement includes three years without general raises (with a cash bonus in the third year), followed by two years of increases roughly matching the rate of inflation.

But even if the roughly 120,000 members of the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation ratify those agreements before the end of the summer, the state will need to find an additional $302 million to match the enacted budget.
The Cuomo administration says those funds will come from three sources: similar agreements yet to be reached with other state unions; related savings gleaned from non-unionized workers and retirees; and an anticipated bump in the rate of attrition, or employees leaving state service. Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto declined to break down how much the administration is anticipating from each source, saying that it could complicate future labor negotiations.

The first category comprises roughly 70,000 in workers in other bargaining units, more than half of them SUNY or CUNY employees who will be negotiating with Cuomo’s team. The remainder includes members of several law enforcement unions, such as State Police and corrections officers, who are subject to binding arbitration due to negotiating impasses.

Achieving that portion of the $302 million “presumes that Cuomo will be able to knock out State Police, correctional officers and other unionized employees with three zeros,” said Lee Adler, who teaches public sector collective bargaining and labor law at Cornell University’s ILR School, referring to the lack of salary increases.

The second savings category contains so-called “unrepresented workers,” like retirees who would pay higher health insurance costs under the agreements reached with CSEA and PEF, plus the 9,000 or so “management/confidential” state employees who can’t take part in collective bargaining.

Barbara Zaron, president of the state Organization of Management Confidential Employees, said extending the PEF-CSEA deal to M/Cs would put them even deeper in the hole after former Gov. David Paterson rescinded a total of 7 percent in raises for M/Cs in the two previous fiscal years — increases that CSEA and PEF members received according to the provisions of their most recent contracts.

“We’re significantly behind where PEF and CSEA are right now,” said Zaron, whose group represents M/Cs but is barred from collective bargaining on their behalf. Even so, OMCE has pleaded its case to administration officials, arguing the current salary situation incentivizes good workers to reject promotions that would boost them out of union positions, and creates situations in which supervisors make less than those they manage.
And then there’s the prospect of winnowing down the state workforce due to attrition. While the departure of a large number of baby boom members has been expected, that rush to the exit could be hurried along by the prospect of three years without raises.
Then again, maybe not: “Will workers in a dire economy step aside from state employment when there are no likely employment alternatives?,” said Adler.

Coniberal? Progractionary?

by Richard Brodsky

I used to be able to recognize lefties by smell, touch or sound. They cared about progressive taxation, economic justice for the poor, a decent level of government services and the environment and had a healthy suspicion of big business.

Some leading Dems are tossing most of that stuff overboard. They are embracing Republican economic policies, while still clutching hard to Democratic ideals on identity politics.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the most outspoken exponent of this new kind of politics. He’s creating a new kind of beast: the “Progractionary”…the “Congressive”…the “Coniberal”…the “Libactionary.” It’s a high-risk, high-reward kind of politics, and the outcomes are unknown.

Cuomo’s state budget and his rhetoric were from the hard-right playbook, the one with chapters titled “Read My Lips, No New Taxes,” “The Problem Is Spending and Unions” and “Cut School Aid and Health Care.”

By telling us New York has to cut spending and can’t afford any more taxes, Cuomo paid a hefty price from traditional Democratic constituencies. He’s looking hard at a national future, which requires left-wing credentials. What to do?

His answer is shrewd and insightful—maybe. He has adopted the economic policies of the Right, but is aggressively supporting the liberation and identity struggles of the Left. He is carefully courting the leaders of New York’s many religious, ethnic and language minorities, and has made enactment of a gay marriage bill a top priority.

Cuomo exercised considerable muscle to get it done, with Democrats falling in line and Republicans preparing to trade enough votes for other things they want. He’s betting that a true human rights victory, and an important one, will allow him to reclaim the liberal mantle his father fashioned and wore for so long, no matter what his economic policies are.

Maybe being progressive means something different now. Conservatives never liked the New Deal or the Great Society, never liked Social Security or Medicare or progressive taxation, always favored unleashing the economic and political power of large corporations and hated government programs that softened the hard edge of wealth and income inequality.

Democrats, on the other hand, stuck with those principles as inarguable and fundamental declarations of their social vision, until now. The erosion of Democratic solidarity in this fight will have huge consequences.

Identity politics rose from the civil rights movements, the women’s movement and a growing awareness of historical repression and injustice against once-stigmatized groups of Americans. Ensuring decent treatment of all Americans is central to any society’s long-term health and decency, but it lacks the broad unifying appeal of economic issues.

The Right never supported the civil rights or women’s movements, or most of the others. Those causes became linked to Democrats almost as powerfully as economic justice. Now identity politics may have trumped economic concerns among Democrats. It’s a little scary, but Cuomo has launched that boat.

In an era when corporations dominate economics and politics, the collapse of support for economic fairness will have enormous consequences for most Americans.

These policies built the American middle class, made upward mobility possible, made old age bearable and created a politically active and involved citizenry that encouraged democratic values.
The new beast slouching out of Albany onto the national stage is an unfamiliar creature, and a dangerous one. It’s not that labels matter, but labels matter—and smushing together right-wing economics and left-wing identity politics deserves a new name.
Progractionary? Congressive? Coniberal? Libactionary? You choose. But it could change America for the worse no matter what you call it.

Richard Brodsky is a Senior Fellow at Demos, a NYC-based think tank, and at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Administration. He served in the state Assembly from 1983 to 2010 and chaired the corporations and environmental protection committees. He appears regularly as a contributing editor on WRNN-TV.

Small Business and Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Brooklyn Labor Market Review (BMLR), Spring 2011

Originally published June 22, 2011

Small Business and Immigrant Entrepreneurship, Brooklyn Labor Market Review (BMLR), Spring 2011.

Prepared by FPI for the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the latest issue of the BLMR looks at immigrant entrepreneurs in Brooklyn by sector. The report finds that there are nearly 14,500 Brooklyn immigrant small businesses across a range of sectors from construction to restaurants, grocery stores, child care services and doctors’ offices.

Read the full article: FPI