 SEEING IS BELIEVING — Region 11
Coordinator Jemma Marie-Hanson and Executive Board member
Deborah Egel meet at the Creedmoor Addiction Treatment
Center in Queens in July with Assembly members Mark
Weprin and Jeffrey Dinowitz, chair of the Assembly
Committee on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse. Egel invited
the lawmakers to visit Creedmoor and the Bronx ATC to
educate them about the treatment centers. They’re
looking over the ATC annual report. — Photo by NYS
Assembly
New fund
to support fight-back campaigns
Job
security efforts reviewed at June E. Board meeting
By LINDA RUBIN and SHERRY HALBROOK
The job security of its members continues to be a top
priority for the union, PEF President Roger Benson told
its Executive Board at its quarterly meeting held June 19
and 20 in Albany.
Benson thanked PEF’s leaders, activists and staff
for pushing through state tax-revenue reforms and $50
million in budget restorations for state services through
the Legislature, along with historic overrides of the
governor’s vetoes.
PEF spent $1.6 million on its Budget Fight Back campaign
this past year and got other labor unions and the AFL-CIO
to join the overall campaign, which cost a total of $25
million.
Benson said the state will likely face another $5-$10
billion deficit next year and the possibility of layoffs
continues to threaten PEF members.
PEF’s Budget Work Group will continue to investigate
other sources of revenue, he said, and the union will
continue to explore coalitions with labor and other
groups to fight for state services.
PEF will reconvene its strategic leadership group for the
state Office of Mental Health, he said, to begin
preparing to defend jobs and services at OMH facilities
that the state may try to close in 2004-05.
Benson announced PEF will ask state lawmakers to sponsor
legislation requiring the state to give PEF and others a
year’s advance notice before closing any state
facilities.
Jobs at the state Labor Department could be endangered,
he said, if the federal Unemployment Tax Act is repealed.
Preventing that is a major priority for PEF, because the
bill would reduce federal funding for the state DOL by
$350 million. He thanked activists at DOL for leading
this effort.
Solidarity Fund established
The PEF Board voted to establish an AFT Solidarity Fund
in a segregated bank account, which will allow PEF to
receive from AFT a monthly rebate of 25 cents for each
PEF member on which PEF pays dues to AFT.
PEF can spend money from the fund only in emergency
fight-back situations and would need the approval of
two-thirds of the PEF Executive Board.
Stop contracting
out
Benson asked Vice Presidents Pat Baker and Ken Brynien to
lead a group of members from the Job Security Committee
and the PS&T Contract Team to develop a mobilization
campaign around waste in state government from
privatization to contracting out.
PEF is also realigning staff within its Civil Service
Enforcement Department, he reported, to create a new unit
to deal with the threats privatization and contracting
out pose to members’ job security.
Benson told the board PEF is getting closer every day to
achieving its goal of having 75 percent of its divisions
fully mobilized by the 25th Annual PEF Convention in
September — a vital factor in PEF’s ability to
defend jobs, negotiate fair contracts, and shape public
policy.
Comparability counts
PEF will focus on comparability in its PS&T contract
negotiations, Benson said, and the fact that not a single
public-sector union in this state has accepted a zero in
negotiations since the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001.
Brynien, who chairs the PS&T Contract Team, reported
PEF and the state agreed to leave 20 articles in the
1999-03 agreement unchanged. PEF has submitted specific
language changes for 25 of the other articles under
negotiation.
Negotiations for special agreements relating to the state
Schools for the Deaf and the Blind had begun, Brynien
reported, and those relating to Roswell Park Cancer
Institute would begin soon.
Brynien said PEF was meeting with other state-employee
unions concerning their common concerns about health
benefits negotiations.
PEF Director of Labor Relations Roger Scales reported the
arbitration hearings have concluded on PEF’s
grievance relating to disagreements with the state over
interpretation of PS&T Contract Article 12.17
(Timekeeping), and PEF is awaiting a decision from the
independent arbitrator.
PEF Director of Contract Administration Robert Carrothers
reported the state is preparing a request for proposals
from companies interested in administering a pilot
program that would allow PS&T members in the New York
City area to pay for commuting costs with pre-tax dollars
that would be withheld from their paychecks.
Pension reforms
unlikely
Benson said the state’s contribution to the
Retirement Fund is expected to continue increasing next
year, making it unlikely the Legislature will be amenable
to any further retirement enhancements for state workers.
He said stock market increases would help restore the $30
billion that the pension fund lost, but it would be a
struggle to enact any pension reforms at this time.
PEF will continue to lobby legislators to make 25/55
permanent and to get service credits for members of Tiers
3 and 4 who pay in after 10 years, and converting leave
credits for service credits for late Tier 1 and Tier 2
members.
Benson said PEF will also continue to fight for a Heart
Bill for Parole, as PEF members are one of the few groups
of criminal justice employees in New York state that do
not have this benefit.
The 2004 national presidential election is already
heating up, and Benson reported that the Executive Board
of the Service Employees International Union (one of
PEF’s two international affiliates), voted to make
the defeat of President George Bush’s re-election
bid SEIU’s “number one” priority in 2004.
SEIU will activate 2,004 members, leaders and staff to be
involved in election campaigns in the swing states. One
PEF Executive Board member responded, when Benson asked
the if anyone opposed PEF’s involvement in such a
campaign.
’03 retirees get free dues
The board voted that PEF pay the first year’s
membership dues of $12 in PEF Retirees for all PEF
members who retire during the 2003 calendar year.
They’ll be funded for the following year, if
they’ve already paid for their 2003 membership.
It’s expected to cost PEF $60,000. The program will
be evaluated in the first quarter of 2004 so the board
can decide whether to extend it to future years.
The board also adopted a policy that no more than one PEF
retiree can participate on any PEF Committee at a time,
but a committee member who retires while serving on a PEF
Committee can maintain his or her membership on that
committee.
Pay, travel upgrades
The board approved the recommendations of PEF
Secretary-Treasurer Jane Hallum to amend the PEF budget
to accommodate pay upgrades for the union’s
statewide officers and one staff member.
Hallum announced that she and Benson will not implement
their salary increases until the next PS&T contract
has been settled and ratified.
Hallum reported that, as directed by the board, she had
come up with a way to help Executive Board members pay
for travel to meet with their constituents in other parts
of the state.
She said the money would come from funds allocated for
the full Executive Board, since it often does not use
money budgeted for members to have a second overnight
stay at its quarterly meetings. This was to take effect
immediately. A vote on it was postponed to the August
meeting.
Election rules
amended
Hallum reported that the expense of allowing nominating
petitions for the union’s triennial elections to be
filed in PEF regional offices totaled $12,000 as of May
30.
Hallum said the process this year was difficult because
of procedural changes. She reviewed the new election
process and some of the problems with the old computer
system for maintaining accurate lists of board
constituencies, and the timeliness of the lists provided
by PEF labor-management committee chairs.
Hallum proposed that neither board seats nor nominating
petitions should be invalidated because of data
processing errors, and that such errors should just be
corrected.
The board voted to amend the Election Rules so that any
unopposed candidate who otherwise would be barred from
serving on the board because of a data-processing error
be seated if their petitions were verified and they met
all of the other requirements.
The unopposed candidates affected by this problem in the
2003 Triennial Elections who otherwise met all other
criteria of the election would be seated at the August
board meeting.
Another problem arose when some candidates on the Members
1st slate filed petitions that spelled out
“1st” as “First” and the Election
Committee disallowed those petitions.
The board voted that the two petitions, which the
Election Committee disallowed Cindy Bartley Horn for
indicating Members “First,” be checked. If she
has enough valid nominating signatures, an election
between her and the other certified candidate for that
seat will be held as soon as possible.
The board also voted that use of a candidate’s
Social Security number in place of their PEF PIN on
nominating petitions would not invalidate candidate
petitions.
Bylaws changes
proposed
The board approved sending two proposed amendments to the
PEF Constitution and Bylaws to the 2003 Convention
delegates for action. The first of these amendments would
make the three existing offices of vice president
“executive” vice presidents, and the 12
regional coordinators would become full-time vice
presidents.
The second proposed amendment would elect the three PEF
trustees independently of one another through
geographically-based constituencies — one from from
Regions 1–7; one from Regions 8-9; and one from
Regions 10–12. Trustees elected in 2006 would serve
a two-year term.
A third proposed amendment would have reduced the number
of nominating signatures required for statewide office
from 10 percent to 5 percent. It was withdrawn by the
Constitution and Bylaws Committee because general counsel
advised such a change might trigger another review by the
US Department of Labor which reviewed the current
requirement in the mid-’90s and found it acceptable.
Quality Service
recognized
State transportation engineer Ted Ricciardelli, a
volunteer Employee Assistance Program coordinator for the
past seven years, was presented the PEF Quality Service
Award.
And four members who were leaving the Executive Board
— Alan Schulkin, Pat Mulvey, Sally Dixon and David
Perez — were presented with plaques of appreciation
for their service.
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