Delegates eager to support PS&T contract team

By SHERRY HALBROOK
“What do we want in our contract and how can we get it,” was a major underlying theme of PEF’s 28th Annual Convention held in mid-October in Lake Placid. From the keynote speaker, to resolutions, to the PS&T Contract Team’s final meeting with members to prepare for bargaining, the issue was on the tip of everyone’s mind.

“To have power at the bargaining table, the union must have power away from the table. Contract negotiations are really about power away from the table,” Roger Toussaint advised the more than 800 PEF delegates in his keynote address.

Toussaint spoke from experience, having led Transportation Workers’ Union Local 100 members in a two-day contract strike in New York city earlier this year that brought public transportation to a crawl, but overcame management pressure for concessions on pensions, health care and work rules, and produced a tentative agreement just two days later.

A dozen of the resolutions members sent to the convention dealt with contract issues.

Learning from each other
And for well over two hours, a large group of delegates talked with the PS&T Contract Team about bargaining issues and strategy for the negotiations to start early next year for a successor agreement to the current contract that expires April 1.

It was the team’s final meeting with members after months of crisscrossing the state to meet with groups of members in every region to learn both how the current contract is working, and how it’s not working to meet their needs.

“We are learning a lot from these meetings,” PEF Vice President Lou Matrazzo, chair of the contract team, told the delegates. And although many of the same issues have been raised at nearly every meeting, Matrazzo said, “You give us real examples we can use as ammunition at the bargaining table when management tells us, ‘Oh, that never happens.’”

Part of PEF’s preparations for bargaining, he said, has involved reaching out to the other state-employee unions to discuss common issues and goals and the need to avoid accepting contract terms that would set a negative pattern for all the other agreements.

In addition to good across-the-board raises, some of the other big concerns for PEF will be the need to protect pensions and health care benefits, get extra money for members in areas with very high costs of living, and expand the pay parity established in the current contract through grade 18.

Matrazzo said PEF is also looking for creative ways to improve dental benefits for its PS&T members.

Although the Taylor Law prohibits negotiation of pension benefits and relegates that issue to the legislative arena, Matrazzo said the team understands that some contract articles on such things as how your leave accruals are valued when you retire, can affect your pension.

Delegates share ideas
Delegate Charlie Kelefant said members who rarely use little sick leave are unfairly disadvantaged by the contractual ceiling of 200 days on sick leave accruals.

And Kelefant said PEF should try to get more professional leave for members in jobs with more stringent professional licensing requirements.

Delegate Ron Manuli said he wants “the highest pay raises possible,” and worries that getting the state to spend money to improve or add other benefits “eats into that.”

Another delegate asked why PEF did not negotiate contracts timed to force the governor to negotiate just before he stands for re-election.

Matrazzo said PEF tried last time to get a three-year, rather than four-year contract, but couldn’t overcome the pattern set when other state-employee unions accepted four-year agreements, since the state wants all of its employee contracts to be the same length.

Delegate Tara Blum asked the team to negotiate for more flexible work options and telecommuting.

Matrazzo said some agencies agree to these things through the labor-management process, but many managers and supervisors are reluctant to go along.

The team was asked to negotiate the opportunity to sell unused vacation time back to the state.

Matrazzo said PEF asked for that when it negotiated the current contract, but the state refused.

Matrazzo said PEF would likely try again to get it.

‘We’ll be ready’
After discussion of many other contract issues, Matrazzo reminded the delegates the team will depend on them and other PEF members to mobilize quickly and effectively to support the union at the table.

According to Matrazzo, the next step for the contract team is to review all of the suggestions it gathered from the delegates and members at its nearly 50 “town” meetings with them.

“With the coming change in administration, we don’t know when the state will be prepared to commence negotiations,” Matrazzo said. “Whatever the state’s plans might be, this contract team will be ready to go to the table at the start of the new year.”