Newsday (Melville, New York), January 26, 2007, Friday
Copyright 2007 Newsday
Newsday (Melville, New York)
January 26, 2007 Friday
SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS
HEADLINE: Week flies by for these union workers
BYLINE: Erik German, Newsday, Melville, N.Y.
BODY:
Jan. 26--Where can you work 9 to 5, take an hour off for lunch and still put in for overtime?
Brookhaven Town Hall, if you're among the town's 390 unionized white-collar workers. They enjoy the shortest workweek of all town employees on Long Island -- 32.5 hours, as mandated by their union contract.
The issue came up after the town board this week lengthened the workweek for management employees from 32.5 hours to 35 hours.
Union officials defended the unionized white-collar workers arrangement as proper, but some government leaders say it's laughable.
"That's a joke," said Steve Levy, county executive in Suffolk, where the white-collar union members work 35 hours weekly. "You just can't achieve productivity on such a low level."
But the head of Brookhaven's Civil Service Employees white- collar unit said the short workweek, in place for decades, isn't a sign of indolence.
"When we're here, we work like dogs, like everyone else," said unit president Meg Shutka. "The hours that we're provided still allows time with the family, and in today's society, that's something that's being lost. It's a shame more places don't have something like this."
After Brookhaven, North Hempstead's unionized office workers have the shortest schedule, clocking in at 33.75 hours per week. Babylon's white-collars had the same arrangement as Brookhaven until 2004, when the town upped the hours to 37.5 weekly. The rest of Long Island's town office personnel work at least a 35-hour week.
If Brookhaven's unionized white-collars were behind their desks 35 hours weekly, the town would get an additional 48,000 hours of work yearly -- even with two weeks' vacation for all members.
This struck some residents as problematic. "For a town this size, all those man hours are extremely important," said Ira Brickman, 58, of Middle Island. "As a taxpayer, I'd hope this would be reviewed to see if there is room for improvement."
With Brookhaven locked in to the fifth year of a 10-year contract, town officials said there's little they can do.
"We're stuck with this," said Councilman Steve Fiore-Rosenfeld. "It won't be a live issue until between four and five years from now." But even then, said Labor Historian Cletus Daniel of Cornell University, extracting concessions could be difficult for officials facing re-election every two years.
"Municipal unions have the advantage of being able to bring political pressure to bear on people who are responsive to that pressure," he said.
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