State puts 3% raises on the table
PS&T members break through state's 4 yr. pay-freeze demand		  
By SHERRY HALBROOK

On October 1, PEF members broke through the state's wall of zeroes and at last found real money on the bargaining table. The state offered PS&T members a four-year pact with three-percent salary increases in each year.

"We're pleased that the governor is finally acknowledging that PEF members are worth more than zeros when it comes to raises, but this contract offer does not go far enough in meeting our members needs," said PEF President Roger Benson.

Benson said the union objects to the proposed six-month delay in implementation of a raise. PEF is seeking a five percent raise, retroactive to April 1, when a new contract should have been in place.

"The governor and his top aides did not have to wait six months for their 33 percent to 38 percent raises, and neither should we," Benson said.
"Although this offer lacks some important features, and includes others we don't like, it finally opens the door to meaningful talks - something the state's previous insistence on a four-year pay freeze precluded," he added.

"Our members' aggressive support of their PEF bargaining team achieved this breakthrough. It's the determined efforts of our member mobilizers and rank-and-file members at worksites all over the state that has brought us this far. And it's that same spirit and relentless pressure on the state that will finally bring us a fair agreement," Benson said.

"Our members are looking for fairness and respect in a new contract with the state, and we'll keep fighting for it and until we get it," he said.

The union is also opposed to the state's timekeeping demand.

"Each and every PEF member already reports on a time card the hours worked, and these reports are reviewed and signed by supervisors," said PEF PS&T Contract Chair Eric Miller. In a letter to an Albany newspaper Miller wrote, "Nowhere in the private sector are physicians, dentists, lawyers, engineers, architects, accountants, teachers, and a long list of other professionals subjected to the distrustful, disrespectful, and unprofessional scrutiny of time-clocks."

PEF member mobilizer Dennis Anderson also wrote to the Times Union newspaper to dispute its negative characterization of PEF's resistance to restricting use of union leave and shifts in health-care costs.

"The first concession to which (the reporter) refers is 'limits to the amount of time that PEF members could take off from their job to work on union business.' It is called union leave, and under the current contract, PEF pays New York State for every minute of that time. There is no cost to the taxpayer for union leave," Anderson wrote.

"Through this (proposed contract) provision the state wants to limit PEF's ability to effectively represent its members and exercise its right of free speech," Anderson said.

"The second concession is increased costs for health insurance. Some of the proposed co-pays and other costs are 60 percent higher and represent a very significant cost shift from the employer to the employee," Anderson added.

Miller took strong exception to published assertions by the state's director of employee relations that PEF is merely posturing and not bargaining seriously.

"We do not relish being in the limelight," Miller wrote. "We do not enjoy taking the actions we must. But the state has left us no choice. We are not the enemy. No one wants this over more than we do, but fair is fair."		 State's offer at a glance:

· Four-year contract (PEF is asking for a three-year pact);

· Base wage increases of 3 percent each year payable October 1;

· Annual increases in the downstate adjustment that would raise it to $848 in the first year, followed by $873; $899; and $1200, respectively, in the
successive years;

· Single $500 lump-sum payment after ratification;

· Trade-in option to let members exchange three days of sick leave for a $300 deposit to their flexible medical spending accounts;

· Remove "point-of-service" health-care contract language;

· Fund joint labor-management committees;

· Replace funding of the Joint Child Care Advisory Committee with direct funding to employees in the amount of a $200 employer contribution into their Dependent Care Advantage Accounts;

· Restrict use of e-mail for union business;
· Limit availability, use, and cost of leave for members to conduct union business;

· Eliminate Article 12.17: "No employee in this unit shall be required to punch a time clock or record attendance with a timekeeper....";

· Selected dental and vision benefits enhancements; and

· Across-the-board increases in Empire Plan co-payments such as: visits to the doctor from $8 to $10, to $12 by the last year; brand name drugs from $8 to $15 (generic reduced to $5); new vision co-payment of $25 at participating provider; and emergency room visits to $30, and then to $35.

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