PEF blocks South Beach PC contract with SUNY for pharmacy director work

By SHERRY HALBROOK
PEF has been telling the state for years that pharmacists in the PS&T unit aren’t paid enough. Now, the truth of PEF’s claim has been made crystal clear by events at South Beach Psychiatric Center.

The clarity of that evidence was not lost on an administrative law judge (ALJ) at the state Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). She recently ruled in favor of PEF when the union charged South Beach and the state Office of Mental Health with violating the state Taylor Law when they transferred PS&T-unit pharmacy work to a pharmacist in a different bargaining unit at the state University of NY (SUNY), which is represented by United University Professions.

No takers
It all began when a PEF member, who had worked as South Beach PC’s pharmacy director since 1990, resigned from his pharmacist 4-level job in 1999. The center canvassed its other employees in pharmacist 3 job titles, but could not convince any of them to take the promotion to pharmacist 4.

South Beach then tried to hire someone from outside the state system, but the pay was too low to attract any takers.

Finally, in 2001, South Beach struck a deal with SUNY Downstate Medical Center — which pays its pharmacists thousands of dollars more than a PS&T-unit pharmacist 4 receives — to contract for a SUNY pharmacist to serve as pharmacy director at South Beach.

Who shows up from SUNY Downstate to do the work at South Beach? The former pharmacy director who had resigned the same post two years earlier and now works for SUNY.

While South Beach, SUNY and, presumably, the pharmacist were all happy with this innovation, PEF was not.

“It’s a violation of the Taylor Law to unilaterally transfer exclusive unit work to employees in another bargaining unit,” says PEF General Counsel William Seamon. “Such an action must first be negotiated to impasse with the union representing the bargaining unit which ‘owns’ that work.”

The judge ruled none of the state’s arguments had merit and ordered the pharmacy director’s duties be returned to the PS&T bargaining unit.

The state is appealing the ruling.

Defending PEF jobs, pay
“This is just one more face the state uses to mask its pernicious practice of giving away our members’ work to outside contractors for more money,” says PEF President Roger Benson.

“Clearly, this situation forced OMH to recognize how uncompetitive state salaries are for pharmacists in the PS&T unit,” he said. “But instead of urging the state director of classification and compensation to reallocate PS&T pharmacists to higher pay grades, as the agency should have done, it tried to bend the rules and illegally give the work to another state bargaining unit which pays better.

“We will not let the state get away with such shenanigans.”

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