Quinnipiac University poll of New York voters released Wednesday found 72 percent support a wage freeze for state workers

Under fire from public and politicians, New York unions on defensive

ALBANY — As the country slowly emerges from the recession, cash-strapped states and public employees are on a collision course.
New York union leaders are closely watching events in Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio — where Republican governors are seeking not just drastic cuts in benefits and pay, but also a reshaping of the historic relationship between management and public-sector labor.
The noisy protests in Wisconsin have been in response to Gov. Scott Walker’s attempts to scale back collective bargaining rights for public workers.
Such drastic measures are not expected in New York, but the Wisconsin protests have helped ignite a debate here, too, over the role of a highly unionized state work force and its impact on the state’s budget and tax burden.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s $132.9 billion budget, released Feb. 1, calls for $450 million in concessions from state workers and holds out the possibility of 9,800 layoffs if that savings can’t be met.
Tom Gillett, the regional director for the state United Teachers Union in Rochester, said he would be “shocked” if New York faced proposals similar to those in the Midwest.
He said, however, that there was concern that if Wisconsin officials were successful in peeling back union agreements, a domino effect could take place.
“I think there’s a concern, but a lot of people realize that, even though there seems to be some pension envy prevalent among the general population, unions provide a counterbalance to wealth and business interest, and that’s a balance that is important for our communities,” he said.
Business groups counter that by pointing to the state’s tax burden, which according to most surveys is one of the highest in the country.

And some cite what they call the undue influence unions have exercised over public officials in the last several decades.
“A lot of the animus unfortunately gets focused on the worker,” said Al Samuels, the president of the Rockland County Business Association. “In my mind it’s the elected official who agrees to unreasonable demands, unreasonable workforce rules, unreasonable pension demands — those are the people who deserve (the animus).”
Cuomo said Wednesday that he was taking a very different approach from Wisconsin’s Walker.

“It’s all the difference in the world between what we’re proposing here and what he’s proposing,” Cuomo told reporters at a Suffolk County event.
He pointed to his committees on mandate relief and Medicaid redesign, which include union officials.

“We’re handling it different ways both programmatically and stylistically,” Cuomo said. “We have the task forces, we have labor at the table and my approach has been we’re in a tough place, we’re in a tough time, let’s all work this out together.”
The contracts for most state workers in New York are due to expire March 31, the end of the 2010-11 fiscal year. And even though Cuomo is seeking to freeze their wages, about 50,000 workers are due automatic pay increases later this year because of longevity and cost-of-living raises.
But Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, expressed doubts that Cuomo’s proposed cost concessions — including a wage freeze and possible furlough of state workers — could be met.
“I don’t know if we can come to $450 million and bite the bullet on some things,” Donohue said.

New York has the highest percentage of union members in its workforce of any state in the nation, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Cuomo went to pains Wednesday to say he was a “long-term supporter of the labor movement.”

But the state’s laws include provisions that business groups say stack the deck against taxpayers and have allowed unions to receive increasingly generous and unsustainable benefit packages.
“The story of the unions in this state has gone one way — they’ve always gotten more and they will fight tooth and nail to protect these privileges,” said E.J. McMahon of the fiscally conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy.
For example, there is a growing call to alter the Triborough Amendment, which prevents employers from changing benefits in expired contracts until a new pact is finalized.

Union members counter that business groups are putting private-sector workers at odds with public-sector employees.

“The working class shouldn’t be pitted against one another,” said Darcy Wells, a spokeswoman for the Public Employees Federation. “We’re also seeing these private corporations making huge profits and not passing it along to their workers.”
A USA Today/Gallup Poll survey released Tuesday found 61 percent of voters nationwide support keeping collective-bargaining rights for unionized workers.
But a Quinnipiac University poll of New York voters released Wednesday found 72 percent support a wage freeze for state workers. Fifty-six percent said they supported furloughs for state workers.
Donohue, the CSEA* president, said he understood that taxpayers were growing increasingly weary of public-sector benefits. But he said most people don’t understand that the average salary of a public worker is about $43,000 and average pensions run $16,000 to $18,000 annually.<<<<BOGUS NUMBERS
“We believe once you tell the public who we’re talking about, you talk about the bus driver or the snow plow driver who makes sure the roads are safe, when you start talking about that I think you get a different mind-set,” Donohue said. “We have to prove to the public that we’re not all $300,000-a-year school superintendents or deputy commissioners of whatever.”
NREISMAN

CSEA HAS HIDDEN ALL REPORTS FOR 2008 THROUGH 2010 FROM PUBLIC VIEWING

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