Tough Times

Bowie's dead, Cuomo's off the hook for Moreland tampering, the Supreme Court is set to destroy public sector unions and Rupert Murdoch is getting married to Jerry Hall.

Tough times indeed.

Unionization Key To Closing Racial Wage Gap

Turns out busting public schools is NOT the secret recipe to closing the racial wage gap:

A study released on Friday, noting the gains made by black union workers in New York City, said that raising the rate of unionization among black workers across the country would help narrow the racial pay gap.

The study, conducted by two professors affiliated with the Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York, which issued the report, described high unionization rates for black workers who live in the city compared with national rates.

Nearly 40 percent of black workers who are city residents are union members, compared with roughly 13 percent of black workers nationally.

The difference between the rates of black and nonblack unionization is also especially pronounced in New York City. The black unionization rate is nearly double that of nonblacks in the city, a difference that is much smaller nationally.

The authors, Ruth Milkman and Stephanie Luce, found that black union members enjoyed higher wages than black nonunion workers, and were also likely to have better access to employer-sponsored health care benefits and pensions.

“Unionism offers black workers a substantial economic advantage in regard to earnings — to a greater degree than is the case for nonblacks, reflecting the fact that larger numbers of blacks than nonblacks are employed in low-wage jobs,” the study said.

Gee, who'd a thunk it?

Workers with union protections and wages have economic advantages that workers without union protections and wages have.

Maybe reformers should try to stop trying to bust the public school "monopoly" and push for union jobs if they actually care about closing the racial wage gap.

But they don't actually care about any such thing.

The rhetoric around closing the racial achievement gap or racial wealth gap is just the cover story for their real aim - the privatization of the school system and the busting of the teachers unions.

Labor Dodges Bullet In Supreme Court - For Now

From Politico:

The Supreme Court Monday sided with home health care workers in Illinois who want out of a union but stopped short of a sweeping decision that could have decimated union finances and membership.

In Harris v. Quinn, the justices declined to reverse a precedent, set in 1977, that held states could compel public-sector employees to pay union dues. Laws mandating such payments exist in 26 states and will remain intact, in a major victory for organized labor.

 Justice Samuel Alito, writing for a 5-4 majority, called the precedent "questionable," signaling an openness to revisit it in future cases.

Given the impact of Vergara on teacher tenure, a Supreme Court ruling reversing the 1977 precedent that allows states to compel public sector workers to pay union dues would have had a devastating effect on the AFT and NEA.

A bullet dodged - for now.

As Politico notes, Alito left open the possibility of revisiting the precedent in future cases.

The Associated Press has more:

In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take.

The ruling is a setback for labor unions that have bolstered their ranks — and bank accounts — in Illinois and other states by signing up hundreds of thousands of in-home care workers. It could lead to an exodus of members who will have little incentive to pay dues if nonmembers don’t have to share the burden of union costs.

But the ruling was limited to this particular segment of workers — not private sector unions — and it stopped short of overturning decades of practice that has generally allowed public sector unions to pass through their representation costs to nonmembers.

Writing for the court, Justice Samuel Alito said home care workers are different from other types of government employees because they work primarily for their disabled or elderly customers and do not have most of the rights and benefits of state employees.

The case involves about 26,000 Illinois workers who provide home care for disabled people and are paid with Medicaid funds administered by the state. In 2003, the state passed a measure deeming the workers state employees eligible for collective bargaining.

A majority of the workers then selected a union to negotiate with the state to increase wages, improve health benefits and set up training programs. Those workers who chose not to join the union had to pay proportional “fair share” fees to cover collective bargaining and other administration costs.


A group of workers led by Pamela Harris — a home health aide who cares for her disabled son at home — filed a lawsuit arguing the fees violate the First Amendment. Backed by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the workers said it wasn’t fair to make someone pay fees to a group that takes positions the fee-payer disagrees with.

The workers argue they are not government employees capable of being unionized in the traditional sense. They are different, they say, because they work in people’s homes, not on government property, and are not supervised by other state employees.

The workers had urged the justices to overturn a 1977 Supreme Court decision which held that public employees who choose not to join a union can still be required to pay representation fees, as long as those fees don’t go toward political purposes. They say the union is not merely seeking higher wages, but making a political push for expansion of Medicaid payments.

Alito said the court was not overturning that case, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. That case, he said, is confined “to full-fledged state employees.”

Justice Elena Kagan wrote the dissent for the four liberal justices. Kagan said the majority’s decision to leave the older case in place is “cause for satisfaction, though hardly applause.”

Given the bomb that was Vergara a few weeks back, I'll take the majority's decision to leave the older case precedent in place as a minor victory.

Alas, it will probably be short-lived.

 No doubt Alito, who specializes in union-busting, is looking for a better case to sweep away the old precedent.

De Blasio Appoints Bob Linn Negotiator For Union Contracts

In the fun of Bloomberg's last day in office and de Blasio's inaugural ceremony today, I missed this piece of news:

In a dramatic acceleration of his transition to City Hall, Mayor de Blasio made five appointments to his administration, including a veteran negotiator to be his point man in forging new contracts with all of the municipal unions.

As the city’s next director of labor relations, Bob Linn, 65, is returning to a job he held more than a generation ago, under then-Mayor Ed Koch. But this time, de Blasio said, Linn will face the “hardest assignment” in the history of labor relations at City Hall.

It was a reference to some unfinished business that former Mayor Michael Bloomberg left to his predecessor: All of the city’s 300,000 unionized employees have been working without contracts, some for five years. The unions are demanding more than $7 billion in back pay.

De Blasio said he hoped to resolve “as many (contracts) as possible” in 2014. “It’s one of the most important focal points of this administration,” he said.

The municipal union leaders had a guarded response. Linn “was always a tough negotiator,” said Harry Nespoli, of the Municipal Labor Committee. “But it’ll probably be better than what we have now under Bloomberg.”

Capital NY got a quote from Linn:

In his opening remarks, Linn said it was "premature at this point" to discuss contract negotiations.

He then extended an olive branch to the frustrated, 300,000-person city workforce, which was often at odds with departing Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"It has certainly become fashionable to denigrate public-sector workers and you will never hear that from any of us," Linn said.

Also a more extended statement from Nespoli and Vincent Alvarez, another labor leader:

Labor leaders expressed cautious optimism upon hearing of the new appointments.

Harry Nespoli, who chairs the city's Municipal Labor Committee, said he "expects" retroactive raises.
"We expect it now. It's time. We've been living on credit cards this whole time," Nespoli told Capital. "We're hoping Bob will listen to what we have to say, and we'll listen to him as well. It will be a slow process but I think with this new administration we can reach an agreement."

He said he will meet with his members in the coming weeks to discuss negotiations.

Vincent Alvarez of the city's Central Labor Council said, "It's a new day, and the mayor and Linn recognize that we need to move forward. … Obviously retroactivity is part of the issue but we will let that unfold at the bargaining table."

We'll just have to see how things go here.

Cuomo Spends $21 Million To Use Headhunter Service For Patronage Positions

The fiscal genius in Albany showing more fiscal genius:

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo’s drive to hire the “best and brightest” for state government could end up costing taxpayers $20.6 million, the Daily News has learned.

That’s the amount the Cuomo administration has quietly agreed to pay a Rochester-area company for “talent acquisition services” over the next five years.

Cuomo administration officials defended the contract with the company, Datrose, as a necessary part of the governor’s plan announced last year to reform its recruiting efforts.

As part of that effort, Cuomo replaced his Appointment’s Office with a new “Center for Recruitment and Public Service” located within the Office of General Services.


...

But leaders of public employee unions bashed the decision to hire a headhunter as a wasteful extravagance.

“It is ludicrous that the governor would spend $20.6 million on an outside firm to recruit public employees,” said Susan Kent, president of the Public Employees Federation, which represents about 55,000 state workers.

...

 

Under the contract, Datrose will be paid for each new hire resulting from one of its referrals. The company will receive up to 20% of the first-year salary of anyone hired through its efforts.

 

...

The company’s hiring comes on the heels of Cuomo-led efforts to streamline the state’s workforce and hold down salaries.

In 2011, Cuomo and state unions, including PEF and the Civil Service Employees Association, signed contracts that called for three-year wage freezes.

“They are laying off and undercutting frontline stat e employees in nearly every agency claiming that taxpayers can't afford necessary services anymore,” said CSEA President Danny Donohue.

“But money is apparently no object when it comes to filling their political patronage positions."

Salary freezes and furloughs for unionized employees because there's no money in the state coffers, but he's spending $21 million in cash for a headhunter services for patronage positions.

I'd say "Unbelievable!", except with Cuomo, it's all too believable.

De Blasio Says Some Nice Things About Labor Unions

In a Politicker article reporting that Bill de Blasio says he will try and do some retroactive pay for municpal employees working years without contracts under Bloomberg but cannot give full retro to workers, we learn that he said this:

Standing behind a wooden podium on the fifth floor of the Alhabrama Ballroom, he said would play a far more active role in helping labor recruit new members and protect their benefits and wages. He also disputed the notion that labor represented a "special interest" and said, rather, they reflect "the public interest."

"Our mission is to restore the middle class, which has been not just slipping away gently" but "is in danger of disappearing altogether" de Blasio said at the breakfast. "The American labor movement created the middle class in this country."

He went on to say there has been "a relentless assault on labor in the last few decades" and "then you see the middle class in sharp decline, the dumbing down of wages and benefits. That math isn't hard to do. The attack on labor has reduced the economic stability of American families, greatly." He added:

"And some out there will say labor is a 'special interest' and I will say it is in the public interest for people to be unionized so" so a family's breadwinner "gets good wages and benefits, the family is stable and strong economically. That is in the taxpayer's interest. That is in the society's interest.

"So, I look forward to doing all I can, not only to respect and work with public sector labor but to help build the private sector labor movement. New orgazing, supporting carwash workers, supporting security workers, support fast-food workers, this is the work of our times."

I can remember a candidate named Obama saying some very nice things about labor unions and union members during the '08 campaign, something about getting some comfortable shoes and walking picket lines if he needed to in order to support labor, and that candidate, once he became president, turning his back on labor (especially during the assault in Wisconsin.)

So words don't mean as much to me as actions and I'll wait to see how de Blasio handles contract negotiations and DOE policy as it relates to the treatment of teachers before I render judgment on him.

Nonetheless, it is nice to have a mayoral candidate say these kinds of words - I respect public sector labor, I want to expand private sector labor, labor unions are not special interests, they are in the public interest.

These are not words you would have heard from Chris Quinn.

These are not words you have ever heard from Mike Bloomberg.

You certainly won't hear them from Joe Lhota.

Or Andrew Cuomo.

Just like you won't hear nice words like these that de Blasio said about teachers the other day from any of those other politicians:

"I just want to say humanly, personally, Charlaine and I have just the deepest appreciation for the dozens and dozens of teachers who took Chiara and Dante by the hand over the last 14 years and supported them, uplifted them, were there for them in so many ways," he said at the union's headquarters near City Hall. "We have had an extraordinary experience as parents seeing just how good the teachers of this city are."

Again, I'll reserve judgment until I see Bill de Blasio put some actions behind these nice words.

Let's see what these contract negotiations look like in a few months.

Let's see what he does to change the tenor, tone and policies from Tweed.

Still, we're doing a lot better than we were in July when it looked like Anthony Weiner and Christine Quinn were going to be locked in a runoff to take on the labor-bashing Joe Lhota in the general election in November.

Daily News Propaganda Says Public Employee Contracts Will Wreck NYC

You can read it here.

The gist:

Speaking for Bloomberg, Deputy Mayor Cas Holloway recently called on the unions to accept zero raises for outstanding contracts, relinquish back wages and help finance future raises by having workers contribute to health care coverage.

“In any scenario, granting retroactive contractual salary increases for the period covering the recession would open multibillion-dollar budget gaps and force a dramatic reduction of city services,” Holloway warned, while the unions declared that they would make their demands on the next mayor come New Year’s Day.

The powers that be are worried they're not going to get a mayor who automatically insists on 0% increases, no retro and paying for health care, so they're going on the offensive to get that out to the public now.

The public employees unions must agree to these things or NYC will die.

It's interesting how they have money for tax breaks for real estate interests and tech companies that employee 17 workers, but raises for teachers who have gone without for five years - nope.

Can't give them the 4%/4% that every other union got or NYC will die.

Weiner, of course, is already hinting at this kind of tact.

Don't be surprised if that doesn't bring the oligarchs around to supporting him.

They don't care about Twitter photos if the next mayor is willing to force "the unions to accept zero raises for outstanding contracts, relinquish back wages and help finance future raises by having workers contribute to health care coverage."