President Benson's Message NYS-PEF Communicator July/August'99

Roger Benson and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney

STANDING TOGETHER - PEF President Roger Benson and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney join a picket line outside the NYC Hilton. - Photo by Bruce Gilbert

PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE
State-employee unions:
Time to link arms in state contract talks

By ROGER E. BENSON

Contract negotiations have been extremely difficult. The governor's office has insulted PEF members by offering a four-year wage freeze and continues to insult us in contract negotiations by asking for concessions in health benefits, time keeping and work hours, making the value of the current proposals less than zero.

The governor appears unwilling to make an honest effort to offer PEF a fair contract and conclude negotiations.
His rhetoric to our members in public does not match the actions of his negotiators at the table.

He is bent on creating a pattern with other bargaining units and forcing that pattern with other concessions on us.

The only way the governor can get away with offering any state unit a substandard contract is to divide and conquer, and we must stop him from doing that.

As part of our effort to bring about a fair contract, we have launched a concerted effort through our international affiliates - the American Federation of Teachers and the Service Employees International Union - in coordination with the AFL-CIO to build a coalition for bargaining. Public-employee unions in New Jersey, Massachusetts and California do; why not New York?

PEF's PS&T membership of 52,000 is a good negotiating block.

However, if we can get United University Professions' 22,000 and the Civil Service Employees Association's 77,000 we will all have a much better chance of success negotiating with the governor. It is hard to ignore 152,000 angry public employees.

I urge you to talk to your co-workers who are represented by other unions. Ask them to tell their leadership that we need coalition bargaining.

We all need to work together to be truly successful. However, even coalition bargaining has its limitations. It must be backed up by the actions of the members.

Under the state's Taylor Law, the only option we have is to mobilize our members to raise our issues in the media, legislature, and at the polls.

The governor has given us a message that resonates, not with just our members, but with the general public, and that is fairness. The public understands fairness. Our members understand fairness. Why doesn't the governor?

PEF will leave no option unexplored, no stone unturned and will do everything within its power to bring about a contract that compensates us fairly for the vital work we perform for the citizens of New York State. We've sacrificed enough over the last eight years, and have earned a fair raise.

Let's make it a long hot summer for the governor.