| Are Public Unions Public Ills? A Study of New York State Public Employee Collective Bargaining 1947-1976 David Pietrusza (Written for Empire State Report in 1976) |
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The image is inescapable. The Boston Police Strike of 1919, the ultimate vision
of public employee strikes. Stores looted, people robbed, mobs running loose,
and a governor tersely stating: “There is no right to strike against the public
safety by anybody, anytime.” Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge fired all
striking police officers and called in the National Guard to restore order.
London and Liverpool had witnessed earlier strikes by their bobbies, with similar
disruption. Winnipeg had suffered a strike by all of its municipal employees.
Chicago and New Jersey had seen strikes by transport workers. Boston had also
gone through a four-day shutdown of its trolleys and “els” by city workers who
successfully won a wage increase.
But the walkout by Boston's grievously underpaid and overworked police
officers spelled the end not only of Boston Police Union No. 16,807, but also
doomed public employee unionization efforts for nearly half a century.
Typical of prevailing national opinion was a 1943 New York State Supreme
Court judgment:
Not that public employee organizations did not exist. The New York State
Teachers Organization formed in 1845. New York City firemen organized in
1893, and the City's police benevolent association organized a year later. The
civil service Employees Association dates to 1910. The forerunner of the United
Federation of Teachers, the New York City Teachers Union originated in 1916.
They were not really unions, taking pride on their “professional” status,
considering themselves above trade unionism's tumult. Public sector collective
bargaining was unheard of, and although a 1938 provision of the New York
State Constitution guaranteed that “employees shall have the right to organize
and bargain collectively through organizations of their own choosing” common
law dating back to Henry IV denied government employees that prerogative. No
state statute gave them that right. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the
Wagner Act), which formally recognized collective bargaining nationwide,
specifically exempted public employees from its provisions.
But in the years following V-J Day, as in the era following Armistice Day, a
wave of labor unrest hit the nation, and discontent spilled over into the public
sector. In New York City, teachers and transit workers in late 1946 passed strike
resolutions. In Buffalo, threats became reality, as 2,400 of 2,968 city teachers
walked out of the classroom. Within two days, the strike by the Buffalo
Teachers Federation had closed all city schools, a fear of statewide unrest spread
across New York.
Anti-Strike Penalties
In the New York State Legislature, Senator William F. Condon (R-Yonkers) and
Assemblyman John F. Wadlin (R-Highland) had introduced legislation mandating
a number of anti-strike penalties. An offending public employee would be placed
on probationary status for five years and for three of those five years he would
receive a rate of compensation no higher than he received when he struck. In
response to the Buffalo teachers' strike, another punitive section was added,
requiring automatic dismissal of striking public employees. They could be
rehired, but only with the aforementioned penalties in force. The bill passed eight
days after the end of the strike, on a near-party line vote, Republicans in favor,
Democrats opposed.
Despite the law's controversial nature—and repeated attempts to amend or
repeal it—it stood unaltered for nearly two decades. Upstate it proved effective,
largely because of the inclination of local officials to apply its harsh sanctions. In
the wake of strikes in Niagara Falls, Oswego, and Newark, striking municipal
employees were dismissed, and those fortunate enough to be rehired were
employed only in accordance with the law.
In New York City—where in 1958 Mayer Robert F. Wagner would issue a
precedent-setting executive order allowing and encouraging public sector
collective bargaining—local officials were loath to invoke Condon-Wadlin
penalties. The first test came in April 1950, when 7,000 transit workers staged a
half-day walkout. Mayor William O'Dwyer refused to recognize it as a strike or
invoke reprisals. The result was a law that was a dead letter in New York City.
Between 1947 and 1965, a total of 57,000 public employees struck in New York
City. Only 42 were dismissed. All were eventually rehired.
Accordingly, in 1963 Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and Assemblyman
Anthony J. Savarese, chairman of the joint legislative committee on Industrial
and labor conditions, recommended and got changes in the law. The freeze on a
salary increase was cut from three years to six months and the probationary
period was reduced from five years to one. However, some new anti-strike
provisions were added. Mandatory salary deductions, equal to twice the daily
pay rate for each day struck were called for—as were additional penalties to be
imposed at the discretion of the state.
In 1965, however, when these new provisions were due to sunset, the state
Legislature was in democratic hands. Democrats were eager to repeal Condon-
Wadlin outright and pushed a measure by Manhattan Assemblyman Frank
Rosetti to provide for collective bargaining, mediation, and arbitration. It
abolished previous anti-strike measures against individual employees, except for
standard (and rarely used) disciplinary provisions found in article 75 of the Civil
Service Law. It provided no penalties against striking unions.
Rockefeller vetoed the measure. The Legislature would not extend the 1963
amendments to Condon-Wadlin. So the Governor and newly-elected New York
City Mayor John V. Lindsay were left with only the tools provided by the
original 1947 version of the act when it came to dealing with the disastrous New
York City transit strike of January 1966.The 12-day work stoppage that Mike
Quill's transit workers conducted cost the City a $70 million settlement, killed the
15-cent fare, and cost inconvenienced New Yorkers nearly $1 billion dollars in
lost income and 185 million man-hours in employment.
The strike also sounded Condon-Wadlin's death knell.
Amnesty Bill
The settlement had been still another violation of the Condon-Wadlin Act's
provisions, and when a taxpayers' suit voided it, Nelson Rockefeller stepped in
and steered an amnesty bill through the Legislature. In addition, on January 15,
1966, he appointed a five-member panel headed by Professor George W. Taylor
of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (who in 1961 had chaired a
similar committee dealing with New York City teachers' bargaining rights) to
recommend a massive overhaul of the existing system. Taylor's panel, moving
with rare speed for a study group, reported its findings that March. It
recommended:
The 1966 Legislative session produced a deadlock between the Republican-
controlled Senate and the Democratic-held Assembly. Democrats charged that
financial penalties to be imposed on striking employee organizations smacked of
“union-busting” Republicans countered that deterrents advocated by Assembly
Speaker Anthony Travia were ineffectual, and gleefully quoted a New York
Times editorial that urged Assembly Democrats to sever “their long subservience
to a little bloc of union chieftains.” The issue carried over to the next session.
Travia found himself embarrassed when the March 16, 1967 Albany
Knickerbocker News reported that his $25,000-a-year counsel, Harold L. Fisher,
had since January been receiving a $250-a-month retainer from Council 50 of
the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME), for—in the words of Council 50 President William F. Russ—
“advising us on the day to day programming of legislative activities.”
Nevertheless, despite pressure from AFSCME and other public employee unions
(with the notable exception of the CSEA), the Taylor Law was adopted, PERB
established, and bargaining units defined. Penalties were assessed against striking
unions. Still omitted, however, were meaningful sanctions against individual
strikers. But a $10,000 fine could be imposed on the offending union and its
dues check-off privilege could be suspended for up to 18 months. “There is now
the widespread realization,” the Taylor Committee had confidently reported to
the governor, “that protection of the public from strikes in the public sector
requires the designation of other ways and means for dealing with claims of
public employees for equitable treatment.”
Despite the means of collective negotiations which the Taylor Law and PERB
provided, a rash of strikes hit New York State. Fifty thousand New York City
teachers walked off the job in 1967 and 1968. Onondaga, Schenectady, and
Suffolk counties all saw public employee strikes in 1967 and 1968. State mental
hygiene attendants, Hempstead teachers, Troy firemen, New York city sanitation
men, police, and lifeguards all resorted to work stoppages.
High Hopes
“The paradox of the Taylor Law,” said Rochester Republican Senator Thomas
Laverne, then head of the joint legislative committee on employee relations, “is
that while it has granted public employees unprecedented rights and has served
as a vehicle for substantial economic earns, it also see its to have fostered an
extraordinary amount of employee militance and disaffection. . . . The law has
provided the means for improving several aspects of work rig conditions, but this
appears to have had the effect of only raising employee expectations for even
greater improvement.”
In February 1969, CSEA threatened a “job action over a representational dispute
with PERB. Nelson Rockefeller responded with a series of proposals resulting in
legislative amendments to the Taylor Law that 200 strikes involving 303,148
workers and significantly strengthened the state's hand. The 18-month check-off
suspension ended. The $10,000 limit on union fines was lifted and the forfeiture
of two days' salary for each day struck was applied to each striker along with
one year of probation. The last two changes brought the law closer to the 1963-
1965 version of Condon-Wadlin.
The “two-for-one” provision is perhaps the Taylor Law's most controversial
provision and has been the repeated target of union attempts to kill or weaken it.
When first imposed, it was termed “repressive” by unions and was fought even
by groups like the State School Boards Association and the State Conference of
Mayors. The New York Times editorialized that “experience makes it plain that
there is no surer way to build militancy among public employees than to pile
wholesale penalties on top of fines and other sanctions directed against the
unions.”
Despite these dire predictions, the new anti-strike measures—coupled with a
statement by Rockefeller that the state would resume negotiations with CSEA
broke the unions urge for any “job action.” On March 7, 1969, the day the
Legislature was passing the new Taylor Law provisions, the union passed a
resolution, by a one-sided vote of 954 to 40, rescinding its earliest strike threat.
But in the long run, the Taylor Law did little to bring labor peace to New York
State, even following the 1969 amendment to the statute. According to statistics
prepared by the Public Service Research Council and by PERB, New York State
suffered 37 public employee strikes in the nine years preceding the Taylor Law's
enactment. In the next nine years, it witnessed 200 strikes involving 303,148
workers and 511,526 idle man-days. The state's strike-per-year average had
leaped from 4.1 to 22.2.
This is hardly surprising in light of other states' experiences. Massachusetts,
which had seen 13 strikes in 11 years before passage of similar legislation, saw
20 work stoppages in the next two years. New Jersey experienced 31 strikes in
ten years before collective bargaining and saw that number double over the next
two years. Michigan—in the seven years preceding passage of its collective
bargaining legislation in 1965—suffered only one strike in which only 240 man-
days were lost. In the next six years that state was rocked by 290 work
stoppages and the loss of 750,000 man-days.
The number of “job actions” was not the only total on the rise. State employee
salaries—which before the Taylor Law had been increased in 1959, 1961, 1962
and 1966 with the State raising workers' take-home pay by absorbing shares of
pension costs in 1960, 1964, and 1965)—continued to attain new highs. In 1968,
a minimum 10 percent raise was granted. Salary hikes of at least 5 percent, 7.5
percent and 6 percent followed over the next three years. A 1971 study by the
Citizens Public Expenditure Survey (CPES) noted that during the first four years
of the Taylor Law, the salaries of state guards, watchmen and janitors rose 84
percent: the wages of carpenters, electricians and machinists increased 62
percent, and a “typical” principle account clerk's salary jumped 59 percent.
The study also detailed differences between public and private sector wage
levels. CPES found, for example, that the average account clerk employed by
the state earned 27 percent more than his private counter part in Buffalo and 33
percent more than a typical account clerk working in New York City.
The same disparities were true for New York City municipal employees.
Between 1961 (a year in which city workers were already at 101 percent of
average New York City private sector salaries, and 1972, city wage scales grew
by 129 percent while private industry earnings increased only 85.2 percent. U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics figures reveal that maintenance electricians,
carpenters, painters and mechanics working for the city had salaries 31 to 70
percent higher than those in the same trades in the private sector. Even cleaners
were faring well. A 1974 study shows that while the average private cleaner or
porter earned $3.81 hourly transit authority cleaners were paid $5.10 an hour.
Back to Earth
After 1974, however, state workers ran out of luck. A continuing state budget
crisis resulted in merely a $250 one-time bonus in three years. CSEA estimated
that during that time state workers lost 29.3 percent of their previous buying
power. To the employee earning $10,239 yearly, this meant a net $3,000 loss.
The situation was particularly galling to state workers who noticed that many
federal employees had received raises totaling between 15.8 and 16.8 percent
since April 1, 1974. Until this year, state workers seemed content, however, to
merely hang onto their jobs in the face of recurrent layoff threats. But the
current fiscal war served to create a climate for striking because of a more settled
budgetary situation (Governor Hugh L. Carey had even included several
thousand new jobs in his proposed budget); the continuing pressure of inflation,
and state workers' perception of an intransigent and arrogant state-bargaining
position.
To overhaul the Taylor Law, Carey proposed a series of measures. He called for
merging PERB (which handles only public labor relations) and the State Labor
Relations Board (an agency which due to federal legislation handles an
increasingly smaller caseload relating to private labor relations) into a larger
version of PERB—the New York State Employment Relations Board
(NYSERB).This plan transferred all mediation functions to the State Mediation
Board, while both private and public sector arbitration would be NYSERB's
province. In addition, fact-finding and arbitration services now provided free to
parties in labor disputes would be provided on a cost basis. By abolishing 20
positions from the Labor Relations Board and the shifting of arbitration and
mediation costs, the Carey administration projected savings of at least $700,000
annually.
Other significant changes proposed by Carey included:
Binding Arbitration
Of particular interest is the issue of binding arbitration. Since 1974, New York
has been operating under a system of compulsory binding arbitration for police
and fire departments outside of New York City.
Advocates of the policy praise the concept, one in which a three-person
arbitration panel (one member each representing management, labor, and the
state) enters the dispute on the declaration of an impasse and then imposes a
settlement on the warring parties.
Since binding arbitration's enactment for police and firemen, supporters assert
there have be no strikes by either group within the state
Since the enactment of binding arbitration for police and firemen, supporters
assert there have been no strikes by either group within the state. "Compulsory
arbitration"—says the New York State Professional Firefighters Association—
"has allowed the people of New York to enjoy uninterrupted police and fire
protection for the last three years. New York, however, has not been alone in
their success with binding arbitration. In the 13 states with binding arbitration
legislation, there have been no strikes. States without binding arbitration have
been hit with 69 strikes during the same period—69 to 0, a pretty impressive
score for compulsory arbitration."
Moreover, PERB states that arbitrated awards have averaged one to two percent
fewer than negotiated settlements, "In 1975," PERB calculated, "negotiated
police settlements averaged 10.3 percent and arbitrated awards averaged 8.7
percent. Negotiated increases for firemen averaged 8.1 percent and arbitrated
awards averaged 6.7 percent. During the first three quarters of 1976, negotiated
police settlements averaged 7.4 percent and arbitration awards averaged 6.6
percent. For the same period, negotiated fire settlements averaged 8.1 percent
and arbitration awards was 7.8 percent."
A report commissioned by Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor
Relations and funded by the National Science Foundation analyzed carefully the
first 60 cases arbitrated and took more than two years to complete. This study,
usually called the Kochan Report, strongly supports the arbitration concept—a
labor relations tool used in at least 20 states and ten cities.
"Because of the record [under the previous procedure]," says the report, "there
is nothing in the evidence that would support a rationale for returning to the
previous arrangement in which fact-finding and the legislative hearing served as
the terminal steps in the impasse procedures."
"On the contrary,” continues the report, "there is some evidence to suggest that
serious pressures were building up within some of the largest bargaining
relationships during the last years under the former impasse procedure]. The fact
that no serious work stoppages occurred through the difficult economic period
that the arbitration statute has been in effect might be interpreted as an indication
of the strength of arbitration as a strike deterrent. A return to [the legislative
hearing] in the present economic and political climate would therefore possibly
result in the eruption of the pressures that appeared to be mounting in previous
years."
A somewhat modified version of binding arbitration is favored by CSFA. Called
"last offer binding arbitration" (LOBA), it differs radically from conventional
arbitration and is similar to legislation in force in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the
city of Eugene, Oregon, Under this system, each side offers the arbitration panel
a package of demands. The panel then chooses—in its entirety—either one
package or the other.
"Unlike conventional arbitration", says CSFA, "it is a strong inducement to each
truly to develop an ever more reasonable position in the hope of having its
version of the proposed contract selected." However, a settlement independent
of the arbitrator may be reached by disputing parties during the course of the
hearings.
All or nothing
The "all or nothing" approach mandated by LOBA has made many of its
potential supporters nervous and has in fact caused Michigan to adopt a variant
of it which al¬lows the arbitrator to separately judge each point at issue.
The first case, decided under LOBA in Eugene, Oregon points up the problems
Michigan was trying to correct. The panel found the local union's case largely
superior to the municipality's, but thought its position on manpower requirements
"so unacceptable and objectionable" that the union's whole package was rejected.
Still another variant of the plan has been cited by the New York State
Association of Counties and involves the experiences of Englewood, Colorado,
and San Francisco, California. In those communities, arbitration awards are
subject to public referendum. A potential objection to this proposal, however, is
the cost of holding referendums.
The current success of arbitration procedures—as seen by the orderly
continuation of essential services—is by no means a guaranteed phenomenon. A
low award brought in by arbitration may just as easily lead to a job action as one
brought in by negotiation. This appears to have happened in Michigan where—in
a three-year period following adoption of the state's compulsory arbitration
statute—ten police strikes occurred, according to the Michigan Municipal
League. But the Michigan Employment Sedations Commission disputes these
figures and holds that strikes occurred only in Marquette and Battle Creek.
Although George Meany has proposed arbitration for federal employees as an
alternative to the right to strike, most labor lenders are still opposed to the
concept. Albert Shanker of the United Federation of Teachers. John DeLury of
the New York City Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association and Michael Maye
of New York City's Uniformed Firefighters Association are all on record as
opponents. As Jerry Wurf, national president of the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees, stated: "There is no freedom at the
bargaining table on either side when the gun of compulsory arbitration is pointed
at the negotiators."
Abroad, where the arbitration process has a longer history, the results are mixed.
Britain has a system which apparently works fairly well, although very few cases
now go as far as the arbitration step. Australia has had compulsory arbitration
since 1911 and, except for strike', by postal and transportation workers, that
nation generally had a good record until 1965. Since then, the number of work
stoppages has mushroomed and the popularity of the concept has waned,
although there still seems little real prospect of change.
Canada has an odd system in which federal civil servants may move toward
either "arbitration" (with no right to strike) or "conciliation" (with such a right).
Unions dissatisfied with arbitration may switch to "conciliation' and strike as
postal and dock workers have.
In Canadian local government, arbitration failed spectacularly in Montreal in
1969. For 18 hours, police and most city firemen struck. The results were
disastrous. Two men were shot dead, six banks were robbed, $3 million worth of
damage occurred and 61 armed robberies were committed. "The Montreal
strikes"—maintains assistant New York City corporation counsel Joan Z.
McAvoy in the Columbia Law Review—"provides clear evidence that when
employees feel passionately that a binding award is unjust, they are likely to
strike, illegality notwithstanding."
Even in New York State, the chance of work stoppages in an arbitration situation
is not as slim as arbitration advocates claim. Even though court challenges to the
constitutionality of the act probably made unions leery of prejudicing and
antagonizing the courts by job actions, PERB says at least three work
slowdowns have been staged by police arid firemen since enactment of binding
arbitration: and Yonkers in May saw an epidemic of "blue flu" strike local police
dissatisfied with an award.
Another view
In addition, the New York State Conference of Mayors disputes the thesis that
arbitrated wage settlements are equivalent to or less than negotiated ones. 'A
negotiated settlement", the conference says. "for police and firefighters is not
independent of the possibility of an arbitration proceeding. A negotiated
settlement may be reached to avoid arbitration, thus resulting in a higher
percentage increase in wages. As [a] Massachusetts study noted, the avail¬ability
or threat of arbitration has an upward influence on negotiated wage settlements."
The conference also points to the Kochan Reports finding that "those units that
have had the lowest wage levels in the past received higher wage increases under
arbitration than would have occurred under fact-finding."
It is also said by the mayors' conference that the public safety segment of the
average city budget is considerable, and abdicating the power to set manpower
costs in these departments is too great a transfer of authority.
Outside New York City, police and fire departments together average 32 percent
of New York State's municipal operating budgets. In Buffalo, the level is 53
percent. In Syracuse, it jumps to 72 percent In Niagara Falls, public safety
expenditures in 1975 matched the entire amount raised by city real property
taxes.
For financially troubled communities, a fact-finder's award may trigger litigation
or other disruptions of the local budgetary process. In Amsterdam, a
recommendation providing two yearly increases of 11.7 and 15 percent for
beginning police and fire¬men, respectively, made the city challenge the statute's
constitutionality. The city con¬tended the award forced it "to engage in unlawful
bargaining to make payments ordered by a third party stranger . . .”
The State Court of Appeals eventually found that "the Legislature can, and very
often must, delegate certain powers" to such bodies as arbitration panels.
But the Kochan Report says problems of financially troubled cities compounded
difficulties faced by arbitrators. "Unless the parties themselves,” says the report,
"were able to attack the fiscal problems of the cities directly and effectively in
negotiations, neither mediation nor the arbitration process appeared to provide
more than a short-term and relatively conservative holding action."
In Buffalo last February, the State Supreme Court's Appellate Division said an
arbitration panel may well err in judging the financial ability of a city to pay for a
settlement. The court found the panel's decision "arbitrary and capricious" and
ordered the award vacated.
On one point, the court wrote:
Offering the only real option to opponents of compulsory arbitration was the
Carey administration, which proposed a sweeping change in the way binding
arbitration is accomplished.
Noting sections of the Kochan report which tended to indicate that arbitration
was more of a negotiating than a judicial procedure, Carey proposed to remove
judicial review from the arbitration process and instead substitute for it what he
called "legislative review."
Acknowledging that "public sector negotiations [are] in general a political
process," the governor's office of employee relations held there "is no reason to
believe that judges, who are experts in the law, are also experts in reviewing . . .
the ability of a public employer to pay an award granted by an arbitrator.”
Under Carey's plan "the ultimate authority . . . [would be placed 1 in the hands
of those to whom such responsibility be¬longs, namely, the Legislature, which
holds the purse strings, levies the taxes and establishes the fiscal priorities for its
own community. There is certainly no reason to believe that an arbitrator, who is
held to no political accountability whatsoever, should hold authority under the
Taylor Law to set priorities for the expenditure of money by a given political
subdivision. . ."
Under the Carey plan, an arbitration award is sent to the appropriate local
legislative body for ultimate approval. If rejected, the plan is returned to the
panel for re-examination. (On its face, the proposal is similar to a plan in
operation in Britain since 1925. Arbitration awards there are subject to over-all
parliamentary review. In a 40-year period, only four awards were overturned by
Parliament.)
Not surprisingly, Carey's move was seen as an attempt to eviscerate the existing
system and met with strong reactions from-police and firefighter unions.
"We're already looking into selective strike plans in the event arbitration is not
extended," commented Robert Gollnick of the New York State Firefighters
Association after first hearing of the governor's proposals.
Assembly Speaker Stanley Steingut and Senate Majority Leader Warren
Andersen agreed in mid-May to a two-year extension of arbitration, thus making
passage virtually assured.
Carey signed the legislation into law in early June.
Union shop dilemma
The union shop concept poses another potential major problem. Assemblyman
Stephen R, Greco (D-C-Buffalo) is sponsor of a bill that would end the state's
traditional ban on an agency shop for public employees. Greco, governmental
employees committee chairman, wants civil servants to pay a sum equivalent to
dues to whatever union represents their bargaining unit.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have agency shop statutes in effect
in one form or another. Among them are such Northeast states as
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Should New York join "agency shop" states, a tremendous increase in financial
muscle would be granted to public employee unions across the state. Although
many New York City unions already are close to maxi¬mum membership,
employee organizations such as Theodore Wenzl's Civil Service Employees
Association and Victor Gotbaum's Council 37 of the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees would reap big harvests of new "agency
shop" fees.
The bill sailed through the Assembly by a 113 to 23 margin on March 23. Its
future in the Senate is less predictable. On one hand, it is opposed by Civil
Service Committee Chairman Richard Schermerhorn (R-Newburgh), who terms
it a violation of "individual rights.'" On the other hand, his committee is heavily
laced with co-sponsors of an agency shop measure, and union leaders predict its
passage.
Even if passed, however, the bill still might be vetoed by Governor Carey, who
favors the agency shop concept as having a "stabilizing" effect on unions. But
Carey wants agency shop agreements included in the negotiation process—and
not enacted as a mandatory procedure imposed on all governmental units, it is
not known how the governor will react if the Greco measure reaches his desk.
[Author’s Note: The bill became law]
As various reform efforts—collective bargaining, a lessening of strike penalties,
mediation, fact-finding, arbitration, agency shop—have been implemented
around the nation in the last decade and a half, the promise of labor peace has
always been held out. Each time that vision has failed in terms of practical wage
settlements, strike avoidance or local autonomy.
The collective bargaining procedure itself—in the public sector as well as the
private—is inextricably bound to tension and conflict.
Either society must reconcile itself to continued public labor union power and the
periodic shutdown of essential governmental services or it must move to restrict
the power of these organizations—a move which under existing political
circumstances, is nearly impossible.
Private and public labor relations are in some very important and critical areas
basically different. Protective pricing mechanisms are not in effect in
government. Public labor unions may politically lobby against their employers, as
private sector unions cannot. And civil service protection is a privilege purchased
at the expense of other privileges. These are all beliefs that must again attain
wider circulation if the public interest is to be well served.
of public employee strikes. Stores looted, people robbed, mobs running loose,
and a governor tersely stating: “There is no right to strike against the public
safety by anybody, anytime.” Massachusetts Governor Calvin Coolidge fired all
striking police officers and called in the National Guard to restore order.
London and Liverpool had witnessed earlier strikes by their bobbies, with similar
disruption. Winnipeg had suffered a strike by all of its municipal employees.
Chicago and New Jersey had seen strikes by transport workers. Boston had also
gone through a four-day shutdown of its trolleys and “els” by city workers who
successfully won a wage increase.
But the walkout by Boston's grievously underpaid and overworked police
officers spelled the end not only of Boston Police Union No. 16,807, but also
doomed public employee unionization efforts for nearly half a century.
Typical of prevailing national opinion was a 1943 New York State Supreme
Court judgment:
- “To tolerate or recognize any combination of civil service employees of the
government as a labor organization or union is not only incompatible with
the spirit of democracy but inconsistent with every principle upon which
our government is founded. Nothing is more dangerous than to admit that
hired servants of the state can dictate to the government the hours, the
wages and conditions which they will carry on essential services vital to the
welfare, safety and security of the citizen. To admit as true that
government employees have power to halt the functions of government
unless their demands are satisfied, is to transfer to them all legislative,
executive and judicial power. Nothing could be more ridiculous.”
Not that public employee organizations did not exist. The New York State
Teachers Organization formed in 1845. New York City firemen organized in
1893, and the City's police benevolent association organized a year later. The
civil service Employees Association dates to 1910. The forerunner of the United
Federation of Teachers, the New York City Teachers Union originated in 1916.
They were not really unions, taking pride on their “professional” status,
considering themselves above trade unionism's tumult. Public sector collective
bargaining was unheard of, and although a 1938 provision of the New York
State Constitution guaranteed that “employees shall have the right to organize
and bargain collectively through organizations of their own choosing” common
law dating back to Henry IV denied government employees that prerogative. No
state statute gave them that right. The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (the
Wagner Act), which formally recognized collective bargaining nationwide,
specifically exempted public employees from its provisions.
But in the years following V-J Day, as in the era following Armistice Day, a
wave of labor unrest hit the nation, and discontent spilled over into the public
sector. In New York City, teachers and transit workers in late 1946 passed strike
resolutions. In Buffalo, threats became reality, as 2,400 of 2,968 city teachers
walked out of the classroom. Within two days, the strike by the Buffalo
Teachers Federation had closed all city schools, a fear of statewide unrest spread
across New York.
Anti-Strike Penalties
In the New York State Legislature, Senator William F. Condon (R-Yonkers) and
Assemblyman John F. Wadlin (R-Highland) had introduced legislation mandating
a number of anti-strike penalties. An offending public employee would be placed
on probationary status for five years and for three of those five years he would
receive a rate of compensation no higher than he received when he struck. In
response to the Buffalo teachers' strike, another punitive section was added,
requiring automatic dismissal of striking public employees. They could be
rehired, but only with the aforementioned penalties in force. The bill passed eight
days after the end of the strike, on a near-party line vote, Republicans in favor,
Democrats opposed.
Despite the law's controversial nature—and repeated attempts to amend or
repeal it—it stood unaltered for nearly two decades. Upstate it proved effective,
largely because of the inclination of local officials to apply its harsh sanctions. In
the wake of strikes in Niagara Falls, Oswego, and Newark, striking municipal
employees were dismissed, and those fortunate enough to be rehired were
employed only in accordance with the law.
In New York City—where in 1958 Mayer Robert F. Wagner would issue a
precedent-setting executive order allowing and encouraging public sector
collective bargaining—local officials were loath to invoke Condon-Wadlin
penalties. The first test came in April 1950, when 7,000 transit workers staged a
half-day walkout. Mayor William O'Dwyer refused to recognize it as a strike or
invoke reprisals. The result was a law that was a dead letter in New York City.
Between 1947 and 1965, a total of 57,000 public employees struck in New York
City. Only 42 were dismissed. All were eventually rehired.
Accordingly, in 1963 Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and Assemblyman
Anthony J. Savarese, chairman of the joint legislative committee on Industrial
and labor conditions, recommended and got changes in the law. The freeze on a
salary increase was cut from three years to six months and the probationary
period was reduced from five years to one. However, some new anti-strike
provisions were added. Mandatory salary deductions, equal to twice the daily
pay rate for each day struck were called for—as were additional penalties to be
imposed at the discretion of the state.
In 1965, however, when these new provisions were due to sunset, the state
Legislature was in democratic hands. Democrats were eager to repeal Condon-
Wadlin outright and pushed a measure by Manhattan Assemblyman Frank
Rosetti to provide for collective bargaining, mediation, and arbitration. It
abolished previous anti-strike measures against individual employees, except for
standard (and rarely used) disciplinary provisions found in article 75 of the Civil
Service Law. It provided no penalties against striking unions.
Rockefeller vetoed the measure. The Legislature would not extend the 1963
amendments to Condon-Wadlin. So the Governor and newly-elected New York
City Mayor John V. Lindsay were left with only the tools provided by the
original 1947 version of the act when it came to dealing with the disastrous New
York City transit strike of January 1966.The 12-day work stoppage that Mike
Quill's transit workers conducted cost the City a $70 million settlement, killed the
15-cent fare, and cost inconvenienced New Yorkers nearly $1 billion dollars in
lost income and 185 million man-hours in employment.
The strike also sounded Condon-Wadlin's death knell.
Amnesty Bill
The settlement had been still another violation of the Condon-Wadlin Act's
provisions, and when a taxpayers' suit voided it, Nelson Rockefeller stepped in
and steered an amnesty bill through the Legislature. In addition, on January 15,
1966, he appointed a five-member panel headed by Professor George W. Taylor
of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School (who in 1961 had chaired a
similar committee dealing with New York City teachers' bargaining rights) to
recommend a massive overhaul of the existing system. Taylor's panel, moving
with rare speed for a study group, reported its findings that March. It
recommended:
- granting all public employees in the state and its subdivisions the right to
collective bargaining (or, as it termed the process) “collective negotiations.” - creating a Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) to mediate between
public labor and management, - revising Condon-Wadlin strike penalties, concentrating on financial
penalties for the unions involved, while relying only on the Civil Service
Law's article 75 for sanctions against individual strikers.
The 1966 Legislative session produced a deadlock between the Republican-
controlled Senate and the Democratic-held Assembly. Democrats charged that
financial penalties to be imposed on striking employee organizations smacked of
“union-busting” Republicans countered that deterrents advocated by Assembly
Speaker Anthony Travia were ineffectual, and gleefully quoted a New York
Times editorial that urged Assembly Democrats to sever “their long subservience
to a little bloc of union chieftains.” The issue carried over to the next session.
Travia found himself embarrassed when the March 16, 1967 Albany
Knickerbocker News reported that his $25,000-a-year counsel, Harold L. Fisher,
had since January been receiving a $250-a-month retainer from Council 50 of
the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
(AFSCME), for—in the words of Council 50 President William F. Russ—
“advising us on the day to day programming of legislative activities.”
Nevertheless, despite pressure from AFSCME and other public employee unions
(with the notable exception of the CSEA), the Taylor Law was adopted, PERB
established, and bargaining units defined. Penalties were assessed against striking
unions. Still omitted, however, were meaningful sanctions against individual
strikers. But a $10,000 fine could be imposed on the offending union and its
dues check-off privilege could be suspended for up to 18 months. “There is now
the widespread realization,” the Taylor Committee had confidently reported to
the governor, “that protection of the public from strikes in the public sector
requires the designation of other ways and means for dealing with claims of
public employees for equitable treatment.”
Despite the means of collective negotiations which the Taylor Law and PERB
provided, a rash of strikes hit New York State. Fifty thousand New York City
teachers walked off the job in 1967 and 1968. Onondaga, Schenectady, and
Suffolk counties all saw public employee strikes in 1967 and 1968. State mental
hygiene attendants, Hempstead teachers, Troy firemen, New York city sanitation
men, police, and lifeguards all resorted to work stoppages.
High Hopes
“The paradox of the Taylor Law,” said Rochester Republican Senator Thomas
Laverne, then head of the joint legislative committee on employee relations, “is
that while it has granted public employees unprecedented rights and has served
as a vehicle for substantial economic earns, it also see its to have fostered an
extraordinary amount of employee militance and disaffection. . . . The law has
provided the means for improving several aspects of work rig conditions, but this
appears to have had the effect of only raising employee expectations for even
greater improvement.”
In February 1969, CSEA threatened a “job action over a representational dispute
with PERB. Nelson Rockefeller responded with a series of proposals resulting in
legislative amendments to the Taylor Law that 200 strikes involving 303,148
workers and significantly strengthened the state's hand. The 18-month check-off
suspension ended. The $10,000 limit on union fines was lifted and the forfeiture
of two days' salary for each day struck was applied to each striker along with
one year of probation. The last two changes brought the law closer to the 1963-
1965 version of Condon-Wadlin.
The “two-for-one” provision is perhaps the Taylor Law's most controversial
provision and has been the repeated target of union attempts to kill or weaken it.
When first imposed, it was termed “repressive” by unions and was fought even
by groups like the State School Boards Association and the State Conference of
Mayors. The New York Times editorialized that “experience makes it plain that
there is no surer way to build militancy among public employees than to pile
wholesale penalties on top of fines and other sanctions directed against the
unions.”
Despite these dire predictions, the new anti-strike measures—coupled with a
statement by Rockefeller that the state would resume negotiations with CSEA
broke the unions urge for any “job action.” On March 7, 1969, the day the
Legislature was passing the new Taylor Law provisions, the union passed a
resolution, by a one-sided vote of 954 to 40, rescinding its earliest strike threat.
But in the long run, the Taylor Law did little to bring labor peace to New York
State, even following the 1969 amendment to the statute. According to statistics
prepared by the Public Service Research Council and by PERB, New York State
suffered 37 public employee strikes in the nine years preceding the Taylor Law's
enactment. In the next nine years, it witnessed 200 strikes involving 303,148
workers and 511,526 idle man-days. The state's strike-per-year average had
leaped from 4.1 to 22.2.
This is hardly surprising in light of other states' experiences. Massachusetts,
which had seen 13 strikes in 11 years before passage of similar legislation, saw
20 work stoppages in the next two years. New Jersey experienced 31 strikes in
ten years before collective bargaining and saw that number double over the next
two years. Michigan—in the seven years preceding passage of its collective
bargaining legislation in 1965—suffered only one strike in which only 240 man-
days were lost. In the next six years that state was rocked by 290 work
stoppages and the loss of 750,000 man-days.
The number of “job actions” was not the only total on the rise. State employee
salaries—which before the Taylor Law had been increased in 1959, 1961, 1962
and 1966 with the State raising workers' take-home pay by absorbing shares of
pension costs in 1960, 1964, and 1965)—continued to attain new highs. In 1968,
a minimum 10 percent raise was granted. Salary hikes of at least 5 percent, 7.5
percent and 6 percent followed over the next three years. A 1971 study by the
Citizens Public Expenditure Survey (CPES) noted that during the first four years
of the Taylor Law, the salaries of state guards, watchmen and janitors rose 84
percent: the wages of carpenters, electricians and machinists increased 62
percent, and a “typical” principle account clerk's salary jumped 59 percent.
The study also detailed differences between public and private sector wage
levels. CPES found, for example, that the average account clerk employed by
the state earned 27 percent more than his private counter part in Buffalo and 33
percent more than a typical account clerk working in New York City.
The same disparities were true for New York City municipal employees.
Between 1961 (a year in which city workers were already at 101 percent of
average New York City private sector salaries, and 1972, city wage scales grew
by 129 percent while private industry earnings increased only 85.2 percent. U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics figures reveal that maintenance electricians,
carpenters, painters and mechanics working for the city had salaries 31 to 70
percent higher than those in the same trades in the private sector. Even cleaners
were faring well. A 1974 study shows that while the average private cleaner or
porter earned $3.81 hourly transit authority cleaners were paid $5.10 an hour.
Back to Earth
After 1974, however, state workers ran out of luck. A continuing state budget
crisis resulted in merely a $250 one-time bonus in three years. CSEA estimated
that during that time state workers lost 29.3 percent of their previous buying
power. To the employee earning $10,239 yearly, this meant a net $3,000 loss.
The situation was particularly galling to state workers who noticed that many
federal employees had received raises totaling between 15.8 and 16.8 percent
since April 1, 1974. Until this year, state workers seemed content, however, to
merely hang onto their jobs in the face of recurrent layoff threats. But the
current fiscal war served to create a climate for striking because of a more settled
budgetary situation (Governor Hugh L. Carey had even included several
thousand new jobs in his proposed budget); the continuing pressure of inflation,
and state workers' perception of an intransigent and arrogant state-bargaining
position.
To overhaul the Taylor Law, Carey proposed a series of measures. He called for
merging PERB (which handles only public labor relations) and the State Labor
Relations Board (an agency which due to federal legislation handles an
increasingly smaller caseload relating to private labor relations) into a larger
version of PERB—the New York State Employment Relations Board
(NYSERB).This plan transferred all mediation functions to the State Mediation
Board, while both private and public sector arbitration would be NYSERB's
province. In addition, fact-finding and arbitration services now provided free to
parties in labor disputes would be provided on a cost basis. By abolishing 20
positions from the Labor Relations Board and the shifting of arbitration and
mediation costs, the Carey administration projected savings of at least $700,000
annually.
Other significant changes proposed by Carey included:
- granting authority to NYSERB to remedy violations of good-faith
bargaining practices. - mitigating the two-for-one penalty if an employer's intransigence provokes
a strike - removing supervisors from bargaining units.
- transferring jurisdiction over the question of whether an employee had
participated in an illegal strike from the employer to the courts. - abolishing the largely moribund local “mini-PERBs” first established in
1967. - granting majority employee associations exclusive representational rights.
- extending to local employees the right to negotiate disciplinary and dismissal
procedures.
Binding Arbitration
Of particular interest is the issue of binding arbitration. Since 1974, New York
has been operating under a system of compulsory binding arbitration for police
and fire departments outside of New York City.
Advocates of the policy praise the concept, one in which a three-person
arbitration panel (one member each representing management, labor, and the
state) enters the dispute on the declaration of an impasse and then imposes a
settlement on the warring parties.
Since binding arbitration's enactment for police and firemen, supporters assert
there have be no strikes by either group within the state
Since the enactment of binding arbitration for police and firemen, supporters
assert there have been no strikes by either group within the state. "Compulsory
arbitration"—says the New York State Professional Firefighters Association—
"has allowed the people of New York to enjoy uninterrupted police and fire
protection for the last three years. New York, however, has not been alone in
their success with binding arbitration. In the 13 states with binding arbitration
legislation, there have been no strikes. States without binding arbitration have
been hit with 69 strikes during the same period—69 to 0, a pretty impressive
score for compulsory arbitration."
Moreover, PERB states that arbitrated awards have averaged one to two percent
fewer than negotiated settlements, "In 1975," PERB calculated, "negotiated
police settlements averaged 10.3 percent and arbitrated awards averaged 8.7
percent. Negotiated increases for firemen averaged 8.1 percent and arbitrated
awards averaged 6.7 percent. During the first three quarters of 1976, negotiated
police settlements averaged 7.4 percent and arbitration awards averaged 6.6
percent. For the same period, negotiated fire settlements averaged 8.1 percent
and arbitration awards was 7.8 percent."
A report commissioned by Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor
Relations and funded by the National Science Foundation analyzed carefully the
first 60 cases arbitrated and took more than two years to complete. This study,
usually called the Kochan Report, strongly supports the arbitration concept—a
labor relations tool used in at least 20 states and ten cities.
"Because of the record [under the previous procedure]," says the report, "there
is nothing in the evidence that would support a rationale for returning to the
previous arrangement in which fact-finding and the legislative hearing served as
the terminal steps in the impasse procedures."
"On the contrary,” continues the report, "there is some evidence to suggest that
serious pressures were building up within some of the largest bargaining
relationships during the last years under the former impasse procedure]. The fact
that no serious work stoppages occurred through the difficult economic period
that the arbitration statute has been in effect might be interpreted as an indication
of the strength of arbitration as a strike deterrent. A return to [the legislative
hearing] in the present economic and political climate would therefore possibly
result in the eruption of the pressures that appeared to be mounting in previous
years."
A somewhat modified version of binding arbitration is favored by CSFA. Called
"last offer binding arbitration" (LOBA), it differs radically from conventional
arbitration and is similar to legislation in force in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the
city of Eugene, Oregon, Under this system, each side offers the arbitration panel
a package of demands. The panel then chooses—in its entirety—either one
package or the other.
"Unlike conventional arbitration", says CSFA, "it is a strong inducement to each
truly to develop an ever more reasonable position in the hope of having its
version of the proposed contract selected." However, a settlement independent
of the arbitrator may be reached by disputing parties during the course of the
hearings.
All or nothing
The "all or nothing" approach mandated by LOBA has made many of its
potential supporters nervous and has in fact caused Michigan to adopt a variant
of it which al¬lows the arbitrator to separately judge each point at issue.
The first case, decided under LOBA in Eugene, Oregon points up the problems
Michigan was trying to correct. The panel found the local union's case largely
superior to the municipality's, but thought its position on manpower requirements
"so unacceptable and objectionable" that the union's whole package was rejected.
Still another variant of the plan has been cited by the New York State
Association of Counties and involves the experiences of Englewood, Colorado,
and San Francisco, California. In those communities, arbitration awards are
subject to public referendum. A potential objection to this proposal, however, is
the cost of holding referendums.
The current success of arbitration procedures—as seen by the orderly
continuation of essential services—is by no means a guaranteed phenomenon. A
low award brought in by arbitration may just as easily lead to a job action as one
brought in by negotiation. This appears to have happened in Michigan where—in
a three-year period following adoption of the state's compulsory arbitration
statute—ten police strikes occurred, according to the Michigan Municipal
League. But the Michigan Employment Sedations Commission disputes these
figures and holds that strikes occurred only in Marquette and Battle Creek.
Although George Meany has proposed arbitration for federal employees as an
alternative to the right to strike, most labor lenders are still opposed to the
concept. Albert Shanker of the United Federation of Teachers. John DeLury of
the New York City Uniformed Sanitationmen’s Association and Michael Maye
of New York City's Uniformed Firefighters Association are all on record as
opponents. As Jerry Wurf, national president of the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees, stated: "There is no freedom at the
bargaining table on either side when the gun of compulsory arbitration is pointed
at the negotiators."
Abroad, where the arbitration process has a longer history, the results are mixed.
Britain has a system which apparently works fairly well, although very few cases
now go as far as the arbitration step. Australia has had compulsory arbitration
since 1911 and, except for strike', by postal and transportation workers, that
nation generally had a good record until 1965. Since then, the number of work
stoppages has mushroomed and the popularity of the concept has waned,
although there still seems little real prospect of change.
Canada has an odd system in which federal civil servants may move toward
either "arbitration" (with no right to strike) or "conciliation" (with such a right).
Unions dissatisfied with arbitration may switch to "conciliation' and strike as
postal and dock workers have.
In Canadian local government, arbitration failed spectacularly in Montreal in
1969. For 18 hours, police and most city firemen struck. The results were
disastrous. Two men were shot dead, six banks were robbed, $3 million worth of
damage occurred and 61 armed robberies were committed. "The Montreal
strikes"—maintains assistant New York City corporation counsel Joan Z.
McAvoy in the Columbia Law Review—"provides clear evidence that when
employees feel passionately that a binding award is unjust, they are likely to
strike, illegality notwithstanding."
Even in New York State, the chance of work stoppages in an arbitration situation
is not as slim as arbitration advocates claim. Even though court challenges to the
constitutionality of the act probably made unions leery of prejudicing and
antagonizing the courts by job actions, PERB says at least three work
slowdowns have been staged by police arid firemen since enactment of binding
arbitration: and Yonkers in May saw an epidemic of "blue flu" strike local police
dissatisfied with an award.
Another view
In addition, the New York State Conference of Mayors disputes the thesis that
arbitrated wage settlements are equivalent to or less than negotiated ones. 'A
negotiated settlement", the conference says. "for police and firefighters is not
independent of the possibility of an arbitration proceeding. A negotiated
settlement may be reached to avoid arbitration, thus resulting in a higher
percentage increase in wages. As [a] Massachusetts study noted, the avail¬ability
or threat of arbitration has an upward influence on negotiated wage settlements."
The conference also points to the Kochan Reports finding that "those units that
have had the lowest wage levels in the past received higher wage increases under
arbitration than would have occurred under fact-finding."
It is also said by the mayors' conference that the public safety segment of the
average city budget is considerable, and abdicating the power to set manpower
costs in these departments is too great a transfer of authority.
Outside New York City, police and fire departments together average 32 percent
of New York State's municipal operating budgets. In Buffalo, the level is 53
percent. In Syracuse, it jumps to 72 percent In Niagara Falls, public safety
expenditures in 1975 matched the entire amount raised by city real property
taxes.
For financially troubled communities, a fact-finder's award may trigger litigation
or other disruptions of the local budgetary process. In Amsterdam, a
recommendation providing two yearly increases of 11.7 and 15 percent for
beginning police and fire¬men, respectively, made the city challenge the statute's
constitutionality. The city con¬tended the award forced it "to engage in unlawful
bargaining to make payments ordered by a third party stranger . . .”
The State Court of Appeals eventually found that "the Legislature can, and very
often must, delegate certain powers" to such bodies as arbitration panels.
But the Kochan Report says problems of financially troubled cities compounded
difficulties faced by arbitrators. "Unless the parties themselves,” says the report,
"were able to attack the fiscal problems of the cities directly and effectively in
negotiations, neither mediation nor the arbitration process appeared to provide
more than a short-term and relatively conservative holding action."
In Buffalo last February, the State Supreme Court's Appellate Division said an
arbitration panel may well err in judging the financial ability of a city to pay for a
settlement. The court found the panel's decision "arbitrary and capricious" and
ordered the award vacated.
On one point, the court wrote:
- "The City of Buffalo cannot be expected to plan its estimated revenues on
what someone in a Senate office heard from an employee of the state
budget department (sic) six months before the governor was to submit his
budget requests for revenue sharing."
Offering the only real option to opponents of compulsory arbitration was the
Carey administration, which proposed a sweeping change in the way binding
arbitration is accomplished.
Noting sections of the Kochan report which tended to indicate that arbitration
was more of a negotiating than a judicial procedure, Carey proposed to remove
judicial review from the arbitration process and instead substitute for it what he
called "legislative review."
Acknowledging that "public sector negotiations [are] in general a political
process," the governor's office of employee relations held there "is no reason to
believe that judges, who are experts in the law, are also experts in reviewing . . .
the ability of a public employer to pay an award granted by an arbitrator.”
Under Carey's plan "the ultimate authority . . . [would be placed 1 in the hands
of those to whom such responsibility be¬longs, namely, the Legislature, which
holds the purse strings, levies the taxes and establishes the fiscal priorities for its
own community. There is certainly no reason to believe that an arbitrator, who is
held to no political accountability whatsoever, should hold authority under the
Taylor Law to set priorities for the expenditure of money by a given political
subdivision. . ."
Under the Carey plan, an arbitration award is sent to the appropriate local
legislative body for ultimate approval. If rejected, the plan is returned to the
panel for re-examination. (On its face, the proposal is similar to a plan in
operation in Britain since 1925. Arbitration awards there are subject to over-all
parliamentary review. In a 40-year period, only four awards were overturned by
Parliament.)
Not surprisingly, Carey's move was seen as an attempt to eviscerate the existing
system and met with strong reactions from-police and firefighter unions.
"We're already looking into selective strike plans in the event arbitration is not
extended," commented Robert Gollnick of the New York State Firefighters
Association after first hearing of the governor's proposals.
Assembly Speaker Stanley Steingut and Senate Majority Leader Warren
Andersen agreed in mid-May to a two-year extension of arbitration, thus making
passage virtually assured.
Carey signed the legislation into law in early June.
Union shop dilemma
The union shop concept poses another potential major problem. Assemblyman
Stephen R, Greco (D-C-Buffalo) is sponsor of a bill that would end the state's
traditional ban on an agency shop for public employees. Greco, governmental
employees committee chairman, wants civil servants to pay a sum equivalent to
dues to whatever union represents their bargaining unit.
Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have agency shop statutes in effect
in one form or another. Among them are such Northeast states as
Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont.
Should New York join "agency shop" states, a tremendous increase in financial
muscle would be granted to public employee unions across the state. Although
many New York City unions already are close to maxi¬mum membership,
employee organizations such as Theodore Wenzl's Civil Service Employees
Association and Victor Gotbaum's Council 37 of the American Federation of
State, County and Municipal Employees would reap big harvests of new "agency
shop" fees.
The bill sailed through the Assembly by a 113 to 23 margin on March 23. Its
future in the Senate is less predictable. On one hand, it is opposed by Civil
Service Committee Chairman Richard Schermerhorn (R-Newburgh), who terms
it a violation of "individual rights.'" On the other hand, his committee is heavily
laced with co-sponsors of an agency shop measure, and union leaders predict its
passage.
Even if passed, however, the bill still might be vetoed by Governor Carey, who
favors the agency shop concept as having a "stabilizing" effect on unions. But
Carey wants agency shop agreements included in the negotiation process—and
not enacted as a mandatory procedure imposed on all governmental units, it is
not known how the governor will react if the Greco measure reaches his desk.
[Author’s Note: The bill became law]
As various reform efforts—collective bargaining, a lessening of strike penalties,
mediation, fact-finding, arbitration, agency shop—have been implemented
around the nation in the last decade and a half, the promise of labor peace has
always been held out. Each time that vision has failed in terms of practical wage
settlements, strike avoidance or local autonomy.
The collective bargaining procedure itself—in the public sector as well as the
private—is inextricably bound to tension and conflict.
Either society must reconcile itself to continued public labor union power and the
periodic shutdown of essential governmental services or it must move to restrict
the power of these organizations—a move which under existing political
circumstances, is nearly impossible.
Private and public labor relations are in some very important and critical areas
basically different. Protective pricing mechanisms are not in effect in
government. Public labor unions may politically lobby against their employers, as
private sector unions cannot. And civil service protection is a privilege purchased
at the expense of other privileges. These are all beliefs that must again attain
wider circulation if the public interest is to be well served.