June ‘push-comes-to-shove’ month for state legislation
By SHERRY HALBROOK
With state legislative leaders talking about a June 21 adjournment for the 2007
session, hundreds of bills, including some at the top of PEF’s priorities, are
still crawling through the committee process.
PEF Legislative Director Brian Curran said he is braced for a sudden surge in
legislative action in early June. Meanwhile, legislative leaders and the
governor are haggling over some high profile issues, such as campaign finance
reform. While the governor has said this is one of his priorities, he has not
submitted a bill as this magazine goes to press.
“We are following the discussions closely,” Curran said, “and we are waiting for
an actual bill to be submitted before deciding whether we should support, oppose
it or be neutral.”
Lawmakers have passed and the governor has signed two bills important to PEF.
One of these extends for two years the union’s right to collect agency shop fees
by payroll deduction. The other extends until June 30, 2009, certain provisions
of state Civil Service Law which allow the union to seek injunctive relief when
it charges the state with violating the state’s Taylor Law.
Meanwhile, PEF is steadily pushing forward its own, broad legislative agenda.
“In late May, the PEF political action liaisons (PALs) are meeting with their
assigned legislators to remind them how important it is to pass the Cost-Benefit
Analysis Bill this year,” Curran said. That legislation (A.7092/S.4561) is the
lone remaining piece of PEF’s Go Public Bills to be passed. It would require
state agencies to weigh the cost advantages of doing work in-house versus
handing it off to private contractors.
Curran said PEF has talked with Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s staff about this
legislation on a conceptual level, but those conversations have yet to get down
to what language in the bill the governor would likely support or reject.
The union also has been providing the governor’s office with information on how
the Berger Commission’s recommendations relating to the three state University
of New York teaching and research hospitals should be rethought. PEF and other
affected unions are launching a joint advertising campaign in the Syracuse area
in late May focusing on the commission’s proposal to merge SUNY’s Upstate
Medical Center with Crouse Hospital there.
Other top bills the union is pushing include Mandatory Overtime (A.1898/S.125)
and Safe Staffing (A.6119/S.1551) for nurses. PEF’s nurses and their
counterparts from four other unions are rallying and meeting with lawmakers in
Albany May 22 to remind them that their past promises to rein in short staffing
and mandatory OT are still unfulfilled.
And the union is urging legislators to pass the union’s two top health and
safety bills — the Judi Scanlon Bill (A.2316/S.3101) and the Workplace Injury
Disclosure and Reporting Act (A.6642/S.1710).
The union is also supporting dozens of other bills covering a range of subjects.
Some of them have already been passed in at least one house of the Legislature.
Among these are:
Health and safety —
• S.99, which would amend the existing statute to protect a wider range of
public employees working in the state prison system by prohibiting inmates from
spitting on them. Such conduct would be considered aggravated harassment.
Nursing —
• A.5196, which would require health care facilities to disclose indicators of
nursing quality, and it would require such facilities with an operating
certificate to make available to the public information about nurse staffing
levels and patient outcomes.
Veterans —
• S.254, which would provide three years of retirement service credit to certain
state retirement systems’ members, even if the person did not serve three years
in the military, but were discharged from military service because of injuries
suffered during certain military conflicts.
• S.2983, which would provide retirement service credit to members of the state
retirement systems for military service in certain hostilities in Afghanistan.
Pensions —
• S.3548, which would increase to $35,000 the amount of money a retired public
employee may earn in a position of public service in 2008 without incurring a
penalty.
Civil service —
• S.882, which would require state agencies to report to the state Department of
Civil Service (DCS) regarding the feasibility of alternative work schedules and
flexible work hours.
• S.1595, which would require the DCS to report to the governor and Legislature
every six months on the numbers of people in temporary and provisional
appointments in state service who have been in those appointments for more than
nine months, and how many of those have been in them for more than 18 months.
For a complete, up-to-date list and status report on all the bills on which PEF
has taken a position, go to the PEF Web site at www.pef.org and select Political
Action.
The Communicator June 2007
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