City Labor Commissioner James Hanley came to Local 237 headquarters in Manhattan May 15 and offered negotiating team members the same contract accepted by several other unions — with one major exception.

Hanley agreed on behalf of the city to provide members of the Citywide Division with wage increases amounting to more than 9 percent over a 27-month period. This was more than 4 percent greater than the city had offered Local 237 during their last negotiating session in April.

Hanley pointed out, however, that the union’s insistence on job security for all members was a demand to which he could not agree. He said it was because of the ongoing effort by the city and the Health and Hospitals Corporation to eliminate nearly 850 hospital police officers who are members of Local 237.

President Carl Haynes told the Labor Commissioner that the union welcomed the new offer for long-sought and well-deserved wage increases, but he was adamant that the offer could not be accepted unless the jobs of all members were protected.

When the city bargainers left Local 237 headquarters, Haynes pointed out to the members of the union’s negotiating team that there is no way that the offer can be accepted without obtaining from the city full assurance that no members’ jobs would be in jeopardy.

“We are a union, and that means we all stand together,” Haynes noted. “We have to be very careful in what we agree to.”

He reminded the negotiators that the Local has been battling with the city for more than a year to prevent Health and Hospitals from replacing the hospital police officers with low-paid, inadequately trained guards.

“Up to now, we have been victorious,” the Local President said. “We’ve beaten HHC at all levels. But now we have to rethink the situation and plan a strategy on how we can protect the hospital police officers.”

Haynes reminded the union negotiators that the city could pull the same tactics on other employees that it is trying with the HPOs, if it is in any way successful with its privatization efforts in the hospitals. “It could be them today, and you tomorrow,” Haynes asserted.

His contention and that of the membership was succinctly summed up by Richard Bondy, a food services manager for the Department of Correction and a shop steward for the union: “I don’t think we should sell out anybody,” he said to resounding applause.

No date was set for further negotiations but Haynes expressed the expectation that they would resume in only a very short time.