Public Employee Press

Mayor hits trades workers' pay

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

DC 37 and other unions aim to torpedo Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's plan to force down the wages of 10,000 municipal trades workers and take away a pay-setting process they have had for 118 years.

Bloomberg issued a surprise personnel order April 11, ending a procedure that allows the Comptroller to set the wages of the skilled-trades workers.

"The mayor's attempt to seize control of prevailing-rate regulation from the Comptroller is a naked power grab aimed at suppressing the wages and benefits of hardworking men and women employed as city trades workers," DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said.

Bloomberg's maneuver came just weeks after a high state court rejected the mayor's appeal of Comptroller John C. Liu's ruling granting Laborers in Local 924 a substantial pay increase, boosting their pay almost 50 percent after they had gone 10 years without a raise (see Court upholds Laborers wage hike).

Several DC 37 blue-collar locals have also won substantial raises by having their compensation determined through the wage survey process overseen by the Comptroller under state Labor Law Section 220.

Bloomberg claims this has cost the city $600 million in the past decade, but the amount includes back pay that piled up for years as the mayor balked at settlements, and most of the Comptroller's determinations have been upheld by the appellate courts.

On April 19, municipal labor leaders gathered on the steps of City Hall to announce that they would file a lawsuit against Bloomberg's action. Speaking out against the assault on workers' pay and bargaining rights were the Municipal Labor Committee, the city Central Labor Council and the state AFL-CIO, together representing millions of members.

Roberts praised the unions for uniting against the threat and charged that Bloomberg's move is "part of the larger nationwide assault on working people by the richest 1 percent."

"With the stroke of a pen, Bloomberg has flushed down the toilet the process to determine the pay of prevailing-wage employees," said SEIU Local 246 President Joseph Colangelo. "This is an attack on labor the likes of which the city has never seen."

Under Bloomberg's personnel order, the workers' job titles would be reclassified into categories with grades and minimum and maximum salaries, making them ineligible for Section 220. The change would affect 2,500 DC 37 members in 20 titles.

Low-wage agenda

Under labor and civil service laws, the city must negotiate changes in wages, salaries and time-and-leave rules with the union before implementing them, but the city held no discussions with labor at all before announcing and adopting the changes. Besides the multiunion lawsuit, the union may challenge the city at the bargaining table and through other lawsuits, grievances and improper practice charges.

"This plan reflects the attack on public employees that is happening around the country," said DC 37 Director of Research and Negotiations Evelyn Seinfeld. "The economic downturn has given the deficit hawks and their conservative political allies an opening to gut services, cut wages and benefits and try to cripple public employee unions."

Most incumbents are "grandfathered in," keeping current salaries, but new pay scales generally will provide less for newer workers. Some information released on the new system seemed inconsistent and subject to interpretation, but it is clear that Bloomberg's changes would create a two-tier pay system.

Although current workers would apparently be protected from immediate wage cuts, it appears they may receive smaller pay increases when they are promoted.

The city's inept bargaining

Local 1320 President James Tucciarelli said it was disingenuous of the city to say the Comptroller's survey process has resulted in excessive pay. The rates set by the Comptroller to match private-sector compensation have generally been fair but have certainly not made any workers into "fat cats," he said.

He and other local leaders pointed out that the city had numerous opportunities to settle negotiations with the locals for less than their members wound up with. Instead, the city did everything in its power to put up roadblocks, forcing the locals to use Section 220, and then built up huge back-pay debts by delaying the process through appeals to the Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings and, later, the courts.

"Right now, the vast majority of the 200,000 city workers have no contracts," said Liu, pointing out that Bloomberg's order deals with only 3 percent of the municipal workforce." The mayor has bigger fish to fry right now."