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     Current Issue Highlights Highlights Archive             Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: September 2000 Union, City Negotiators Warily Seek Openings Negotiators for Local 237 -- led by President Carl Haynes -- discussed for a second time August 7 the proposals and counterproposals that were put forward by both sides at their first meetings to obtain a new citywide contract. A contingent of city negotiators -- led by City Labor Relations Commissioner James Hanley -- traveled to the union's headquarters on 14th Street in Manhattan to seek to find areas of agreement between both sides. Before the city made any statement, however, Haynes made the union's position perfectly clear about a Housing Authority assertion that it could negotiate its own contract with the union. Speaking directly to Commissioner Hanley, he said, "I know and you know the Housing Authority cannot negotiate a contract without the city, so it is foolish of them to refuse to send anyone to take part in these negotiations. But if you tell me the Housing Authority has the ability to negotiate a contract, I will believe you." Hanley, who insisted he was representing only the city in the negotiations, pointed out that the HA is a separate employer and holds a separate certificate to bargain with the unions. He said the HA negotiators will have to deal with the unions in any situations peculiar to that agency. Hanley said that the union had issued 34 demands but had not given any notice to the city as to their priority. "Therefore, we will take all the demands seriously at face value and respond to those that are not bargainable," he said. He rejected outright the idea of a two year contract sought by the union, and a lump sum bonus to make up for the loss of pay suffered in two years of the last contract when city employees received no increases in salary. The Labor Relations Commissioner asserted that seeking reimbursement for time covered by an expired contract amounted to a "reopening" of the contract, something to which "we obviously will not agree." Any lump sum settlement in a new contract, he noted, would have to be subject to the provisions of the overall contract. Three of the union's demands involving pensions have already been settled by action of the state legislature, Hanley pointed out. He insisted, however, that many of the union's other demands were so economic in nature that they could not be considered outside the framework of an overall citywide contract. He rejected as "not a mandatory subject of bargaining" the union's demand for creation of a variable supplement fund, and refused outright to consider the titles considered to be physically taxing in nature. "We haven't added any new titles to this category in 15 years and we have no intention of doing so now," Hanley contended. |
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