Serving New Yorkers proudly
The New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) is proud to represent the two nurses featured below. They are highly skilled professionals providing outstanding public service for the taxpayers of the state of New York.

PEF represents 56,000 state workers who are tested and trained in thousands of professional, scientific and technical jobs to make sure you get the highest quality services.

PEF members serve the public as parole officers, environmental engineers, food inspectors and advocates for the elderly, just to name a few. And they do their jobs better and for less than it would cost the state to hire private contractors.

For years, PEF has maintained state workers are the better bargain, and now with a new law that requires the state to disclose how much is spent on private consultants, we can all see the price tag for contracting out.

The state Health Department, for example, has disclosed it hired an estimated 500 private consultants during fiscal year 2006-07 at an average estimated cost of $439,768 per employee, nearly five-times what the average professional level state employee at the Health Department makes, including benefits.

Help us to make state government more transparent by urging lawmakers to pass the Cost-Benefit Analysis Bill. This bill would require the state to comparison shop for the best bargain, just like businesses do, to determine whether private consultants or state employees are the better deal for taxpayers.

Public employees work for all New Yorkers, putting public welfare before private profits.

Public employees, the bigger picture.

Kimberly Fenster and Mary Zegers are nurses represented by the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF). They were ‘just doing their job’ on a snowy President’s Day in 2005 at Stony Brook University Hospital. But their jobs on that particular day saved the life of a 2 1/2 year-old toddler.

The child was accidentally run over by an SUV driven by his father. A blind spot had prevented the father from seeing his son in the driveway. Several PEF members — paramedics, nurses and doctors — were instrumental in saving the boy’s life that day. He spent six weeks in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, undergoing several surgeries, and is doing wonderfully, according to his mother.

The PEF members who played a role in the child’s treatment and recovery are just one example of the highest quality services state workers provide. They are the unsung heroes who are part of New York’s workforce.

PEF’s 56,000 professionals are on the job every day in every part of the state serving the public as environmental engineers making sure the air we breath is safe, as food inspectors detecting deadly bacteria, bridge inspectors making sure our roads are safe, and in the case of Kimberly Fenster and Mary Zegers as nurses saving lives.

Photo of child © 2006 Newsday, Inc. Used with permission.

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PEF Public Relations ad campaigns
This ad was created by the PEF PR department and appeared as a black & white version on March 26, 2007 of the Special Labor Supplement of the Albany Legislative Gazette. © Copyright 2007.