By LILLIAN ROBERTS
Executive Director
District Council 37, AFSCME, AFL-CIO

We are at the threshold of negotiating our most important contract in many years - an economic agreement that will determine the pay and benefits of about 100,000 of our members and define our relationship with the new city administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio.

I will be meeting on June 3 with the DC 37 Negotiating Committee, which includes our local presidents, to review and update our proposals. Then we will be ready to start bargaining with the mayor's negotiators.

In this contract we have to make up for the long years when the former mayor refused to negotiate pay raises without charging workers substantial sums for the health benefits that have always been included in our compensation at no cost. This would have amounted to a deep cut in our members' take-home pay, and I said absolutely not!

But now we will be bargaining with a mayor who has already shown by cancelling some contracting-out schemes and previously scheduled layoffs that he is open to reasonable discussion of the issues. At the table, we will be explaining the simple economic justice of retroactive increases and pressing to implement the salary review process that calls for adjustments to correct inequities for some titles.

The framework for our negotiations includes two important agreements that have been reached recently with the de Blasio administration - the Municipal Labor Committee's May pact on health-care costs, and the retroactive contract settlement that our brothers and sisters in the teachers' union are currently voting on.

As 1st vice president of the MLC, I insisted that any deal had to preserve our health coverage without shifting the cost onto members' backs - and that's exactly what we got in a unique, unprecedented agreement. While public and private-sector employers nationwide are forcing workers to take on health-care expenses - under threats of layoffs and pay cuts - we saved our benefits without costing our members a cent.

Details are still being worked out, but the agreement will guarantee:

• no premium payments by members through at least 2018,
• no copays in HIP for the foreseeable future, and
• no copay increases in GHI through at least 2018.

The MLC agreed to work with the administration to identify potential ways to save $3.4 billion in health-care costs in fiscal years 2015 through 2018. If we can't agree on these, the issue will go before an impartial arbitrator. The huge savings will work to our advantage by helping to balance the city budget to facilitate future pay increases for our members.

The teachers' settlement is important because it broke the ice with the new administration and established an economic floor for coming negotiations. With its raises closely tied to education policy issues, it doesn't set a rigid "cookie cutter" pattern for us or other unions.

DC 37 represents workers in every municipal agency, more than 1,000 job titles in all. We have suffered and sacrificed to provide services for the public, and we have our own unique needs and our own issues. Our Negotiating Committee will decide on what constitutes a fair contract, and members will vote on the agreement.

I want to warn you that in the tension of negotiations, rumors fly and radio, television and newspapers can be full of misinformation. Don't fall for it. Believe only the news that comes from your union in this Public Employee Press or on our website, www.dc37.net.

We now have a more reasonable mayor, but the mayor is still our boss. These will be tough negotiations, but I know we will come out of bargaining with the good contract our members deserve.