Public Employee Press

Union advances in economic talks

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

The city increased its wage offer to the union at the latest bargaining session for a new economic agreement covering about 100,000 members.

Negotiators made progress at the Dec. 4 bargaining session, and union officials anticipate that the pace of the talks will pick up as the expiration date of the current contract — March 2 — approaches.

“We were happy to make some progress at the latest meeting,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “At the same time, we are not quite where we want to be. We have made it clear to the city that we are prepared to roll up our sleeves and sit down and work hard to wrap up the contract.”

At the Dec. 4 meeting, city Labor Commissioner James F. Hanley indicated that the Bloomberg administration shares the union’s commitment to work for a settlement as soon as possible.

“We are still interested in a quick settlement,” Hanley said before increasing the city’s wage offer.

“We are looking for fair and equitable raises and other improvements,” said Dennis Sullivan, DC 37’s director of research and negotiations. Besides wages, he said, the talks should start focusing on the union’s non-economic demands.

The DC 37 Negotiating Committee, which is made up of the union’s 56 local presidents, spent months last year drafting the demands for the bargaining talks, which began Oct. 16. Local leaders proposed demands, and the committee also considered outstanding proposals from past negotiations.

Besides fair and equitable raises, the demands call for preserving the current level of health benefits and increasing the city’s welfare fund contribution rate for employees and retirees.

Other demands include raising the 15-year longevity increment and restoring benefit modifications made in the 2002-05 economic agreement. The union also seeks a recurring annuity payment and an employer-provided transit benefit.

The current economic agreement covers nearly 100,000 members at mayoral agencies, cultural institutions, libraries, the Health and Hospitals Corp., the Housing Authority, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the Off-Track Betting Corp. The pact runs from July 1, 2005, to March 2.