Public Employee Press

Salary Review Panel starts work

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

Three DC 37 locals presented proposals on March 19 to the Salary Review Panel established under the current economic agreement.

The meeting was the first of several hearings the panel will hold in coming months to consider locals’ requests to raise compensation in various job titles.

DC 37 technicians and consultants have worked with local union officials on nearly 100 proposals for improving the pay and compensation of members eligible for such increases under the contract. Locals began working on the proposals right after members overwhelmingly approved the contract in August.

Amalgamated Professional Employees Local 154, Health Services Employees Local 768, and Accountants, Statisticians and Actuaries Local 1407 presented proposals at the March 19 meeting, which was held at the Office of Labor Relations in downtown Manhattan.

Local 154 President Juan Fernandez, Local 768 President Darryl Ramsey and Local 1407 President Maf Misbah Uddin, who is also treasurer of DC 37, appeared at the hearing to present their proposals.

Calls for more compensation
The Local 1407 proposal documented how the pay of Tax Auditors, Management Auditors and Accountants is lower than that of their counterparts in the state and federal government and at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

Local 154 President Juan Fernandez prepared a report that called for improving the compensation of Claims Specialists. Local 154 members prepared a second report on the need for a salary review for the Special Consultant Level II title at the Dept. of Health and Mental Hygiene. Local 154 will present additional proposals at future hearings.

Ramsey testified about under-compensation of Medical Records Specialists, Respiratory Specialists and Dental Hygienists.

The Salary Review Panel includes representatives of the union and the city and a third member agreed upon by both parties. Dennis Sullivan, director of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept., represents the union, and 1st Deputy Labor Commissioner Pamela S. Silverblatt represents the city.

The union and city chose Marlene A. Gold, head of the board of the impartial Office of Collective Bargaining, as the panel’s neutral party.

The contract doesn’t provide for funding but requires the parties to identify funding sources before any recommendations can be implemented. For funding, the union will likely point to productivity increases and savings from eliminating contracted-out work, according to Henry Garrido, assistant to Associate Director Oliver Gray.

The union also will build on its “White Paper” research — which has uncovered millions of dollars in wasteful expenditures on consultants and contracted-out work — to identify funding, Garrido said.
The economic agreement calls for the panel to consider proposals for titles and occupational groups that meet any of four criteria:

• workers in revenue-producing titles
• employees in titles or occupational groups that were previously contracted out but are now filled by union members
• workers whose duties have evolved to require significant improvements in their skills and responsibilities and
• workers whose compensation falls significantly below their counterparts with similar positions in the private sector or comparable state, county or municipal jobs.