Newsline: October 2003
Mayor Angers Labor Reps at Annual Confab
 A tough-talking Mayor Bloomberg told labor leaders last month that he is going to be reelected when he runs again and that the unions and their members should abandon any hope of getting better contracts from a successor.
The mayor was invited to be the keynote speaker at the annual meeting of the Municipal Labor Committee held Sept. 18 and 19 at the
Hilton Huntington on Long Island. Bloomberg bluntly told the 150 labor leaders at the conference that because of the economy, any idea of
raises for municipal employees must be accompanied by what he called “productivity enhancements.” Unions refer to these as “givebacks.”
The mayor, asserting that the city faces a $2 billion deficit next year, told the labor representatives: “We have got to make sure we work
together and look at new ways of doing things that may require a difficult sale to your members, things that in the past, in a different world,
you would never have considered.”
The mayor suggested that the unions were responsible for layoffs of municipal employees last year because they refused to make $600
million in concessions to help balance the budget.
Bloomberg pointed out that he had raised taxes by $3 billion last year which “funded union members’ paychecks,” but “I don’t remember
getting a lot of support from a number of you as I took the heat from the taxpayers.”
Bloomberg asserted that “we could have avoided those layoffs with some flexibility,” and that “with relatively little pain” union
members can keep their jobs and obtain wage increases.
The labor representatives applauded politely when the mayor concluded his comments. However, they were enraged that he would
visit their conference, blame them for his obstinacy, and demand that municipal workers — who gave up pay raises two years in a row —
should bear the brunt of getting the city out of debt.
Local 237 President Carl Haynes insisted that the mayor did get at least one thing right. “He said at the beginning of his talk that his staff
told him this is unlikely to make him Labor’s ‘Man of the Year.’
“Damn straight!”
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