After presenting an ambitious “blueprint for New York’s future” in his fifth State of the City Address, that includes redevelopment projects in every borough from Brooklyn’s neglected waterfront areas to the South Bronx, Flushing and Jamaica, Queens, Staten Island and Manhattan’s East Side and the WTC site, Mayor Bloomberg said the city’s future would rest on his ability to wrestle health and pension concessions from municipal workers.

In the Jan. 26 speech, Bloomberg said he intended to build on his successes during his last term and pledged that in his second term “we would neither turn back, nor hold back.” He also promised to honor the “more than 100 initiatives” he proposed during his last campaign as he laid out a strategy for improving the economy and creating jobs, housing and parks, health and human services, education and public safety, financial security, and government integrity.

Bloomberg used his speech, given at the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island, to set the stage for a battle with municipal labor unions for concessions in health and pension benefits or fringe benefits. Bloomberg said the budget’s non-discretionary funds, which include fringe benefits and unfunded mandates from the State — Medicare costs, etc. — would “soon overwhelm” the city’s budget if not managed. To cope with these costs and “correct the budget’s structural imbalances… means we must rein in health care and pension costs that have spiraled out of control.”

The mayor continued: “Today, nearly all private sector employees contribute to their health care and the few companies that continue to offer ‘defined benefit’ pension plans are moving to ‘defined contribution’ plans.” “The administration,” he added, “has worked closely with labor leaders in the past to create fair, long-term contracts. Moving forward we will work with them to reach agreements that include a provision that is familiar to most people: employee contributions for health care. At the same time, we will work with labor and legislative leaders on innovative pension modifications for future workers. Only by making the tough decisions today will we be able to finance the wage increases that our outstanding workforce will deserve tomorrow.”

Local 237 President Carl Haynes blasted Bloomberg’s statement as “a monkey see, monkey do” approach. “Just because others employers are forcing employees to pay for their own health care does not mean it is appropriate for city workers.” Haynes added: “Municipal workers endure low wages in exchange for job security and strong benefits. Many city employees are barely making enough to live on and now the mayor wants to pick their pockets to pay for their health care and pension.”

Randi Weingarten, chair of the Municipal Labor Committee — a coalition of municipal unions through which the city would have to negotiate any changes to municipal health care and pension plans — told reporters: “When the MTA did it to the TWU workers it provoked a strike….So I’m very surprised that the mayor would throw out the health care premiums and pension reforms in a speech like this today, given what we’ve just lived through in a transit strike.”


Economic Development & Jobs

The mayor’s economic strategy calls for creating 250,000 new private sector jobs in the city over the next five years by investing in economic development projects that he hopes will attract growing industries and “make New York the most small-business-friendly city in the nation.” It also includes speeding up the redevelopment of the WTC area and creating new waterfront developments and projects in several boroughs including a cruise ship terminal in Brooklyn’s Red Hook, and improving transportation services in growing business districts throughout the city.


Housing

Bloomberg plans to extend the $4,000 property tax rebate to homeowners for the rest of his term and create “the most ambitious affordable housing initiative in New York City history” for middle- and working-class families. His $7.5 billion investment in housing includes: