Democrat and Chronicle, June 13, 2010, Sunday

Democrat and Chronicle

June 13, 2010, Sunday

Democrat and Chronicle

Mayor Robert Duffy, unions engage in new battles

Brian Sharp
Staff writer

On the day he named Mayor Robert Duffy as his running mate, gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Cuomo praised the Rochester native for standing up to public employee unions.

"He was not a pushover. He was not a rollover," the state attorney general said. "Yes, he tangled with public employee unions. Guess what? We are going to be tangling with public employee unions going forward."

No doubt the strain of a bad economy has led to new or intensified turf battles over pay and benefits between the Duffy administration and city unions, particularly those representing police officers and firefighters. Most often, the conflicts — be it about overtime, staffing assignments or reorganization — have involved provisions in labor contracts agreed to years ago but which the city now deems too costly.

Duffy has avoided raising taxes despite massive budget gaps, thus needing to find new revenue or cut expenses. That led him to labor contracts, to tangling with unions, and to calling for reform of New York labor laws that he claims favor the unions at the expense of taxpayers and a state pension system he says will bankrupt the city.

Now on the state's political stage, Duffy finds himself with a vastly larger audience if elected lieutenant governor.

Back home, labor leaders are grumbling — and have been for some time. This is the mayor they helped recruit into politics, and who won election to his first term with near-unanimous union support.

"The frustration out there is this is not the way the mayor portrayed himself to labor when he got the endorsement and got elected," said Jim Bertolone, president of the Rochester Labor Council. "There is a real issue of credibility and trust."

But Duffy is only adding his voice to a growing chorus of protest.

Unions representing public employees are getting hammered statewide and nationally about pay, benefits and pensions.

The last time Cuomo and Duffy were together at a local podium, Cuomo was in Rochester raising questions about pension padding by public employees — saying they were "defrauding taxpayers." And Gov. David Paterson is threatening layoffs after deadlocking with four public-sector unions over his plan to furlough 100,000 workers one day a week.

To be clear, not every public employee union is at odds with the Duffy administration.

The labor leader representing part-time library workers claims his relationship with City Hall has never been better. Other leaders say the relationship tends to be cyclical and define the conflict as being more with others in the administration than with the mayor himself.

"To be honest, I don't know who the real Bob Duffy is," said Jim McTiernan, president of the firefighters union. "Is he a pleasant person face-to-face? Yeah. Do I believe everything he tells me? Probably not."

In the past year, the tone of labor relations in city government has swung from back-slapping over a historic health care agreement to incendiary exchanges over job assignments.

Police and firefighter labor contracts expired in June 2008 and now are headed for arbitration. At one point, all the major city employee unions were without a contract.

"Why are we always fighting?" McTiernan asks. "Well, jeez, it's because they pick the fight."

After Duffy began his push for mayoral control of city schools, city unions joined with school unions to picket City Hall and the Mayor's Ball. The SEIU union representing Rural/Metro Medical Services workers and nurses at the University of Rochester also joined in the picket but say they have a good relationship with Duffy and joined out of a show of solidarity.

Then came Cuomo's introduction of Duffy as his running mate.

"Do you need executives and leadership and management that are willing to stand up and disagree and work through difficult issues? Yes," Cuomo said. "That is what Mayor Duffy did in Rochester. Yes, he tangled with the public employee unions. I respect him for doing it."

Not a union town

New York is the most union-dense state in the country, and the public sector accounts for the largest bloc of members. On May 26, when Cuomo announced his selection of Duffy, a reporter asked the attorney general if public sector unions were too powerful. Cuomo responded: "I don't know how you calibrate too much power. Are they powerful? Yes."

Labor traditionally is the backbone of the Democratic Party. But it is a long time to Election Day. And management battling with labor is nothing new, particularly in a tough economy.

Such tensions have manifested nationally in the revolt against increasing taxes and public-sector benefits, said Art Wheaton, director of western New York labor and environmental programs with Cornell University's Industrial and Labor Relations School.

"It's a sign of the times that people are just frustrated ... they are looking for someone to blame," Wheaton said.

Rochester never has been a union town like Buffalo, Cleveland or Philadelphia. Eastman Kodak Co., Bausch + Lomb Inc. and other chief employers never unionized.

City government workers only began organizing in 1945-46, with water and sewer, trash and cemetery workers. The city promptly fired them, triggering a citywide general strike on May 28, 1946, that also shut down buses and taxis, clothing factories and movie houses.

Police and firefighters formed bargaining units in the 1950s and '60s.

"They weren't around in the Great Depression," local labor historian John Garlock said of local public-sector unions, "so some of what is going on is new, at least on this scale."

Today, there are 60 public- and private-sector unions in Monroe County. Seven of those represent city workers, including police, firefighters, building inspectors and refuse haulers. Union membership has slipped countywide from 65,000 to about 60,000 in 10 years, mirroring a national trend.

But Duffy says the system — at least for the public sector — is tilted in labor's favor, empowering the elected labor leaders to balk at concessions.

"The pendulum has gone too far to the extreme," Duffy said, "... and what is happening now is there is anger among taxpayers and citizens when they see what public sector (workers) have and receive."

Duffy, the city's former police chief, came under fire this past week for receiving both his $127,694 mayoral salary and a $70,255 police pension. Duffy spent 28½ years on the city's police force, rising to the rank of chief before retiring in 2005 to run for mayor. GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio said Duffy was double-dipping, and called the mayor "a walking, talking example of abuse."

Duffy's pension is based on his $109,716 final average salary as police chief.

The mayor has railed against pension padding, in which a person works exorbitant overtime just before retirement to inflate their pension. Take, for example, a retired city firefighter who worked more than 1,600 hours in overtime in his last year on the job and now — despite a $60,121 base salary — receives a $103,952 annual pension, on which — like Duffy — he pays no state taxes.

Duffy and the union both have written Cuomo seeking review of overtime practices among firefighters and management, respectively.

"We cannot keep going down the same road with enormous costs ... that are on the backs of people that make a fraction of what our employees make," Duffy said of taxpayers. "And they're the ones that pay taxes. They're the ones that support us. There has to be a whole lot more give."

Mayoral control

Duffy says he supports frontline workers and enjoys a good relationship with the building trades. His beef is with the elected leaders of some public-sector unions, and a system that he argues is broken. He and his staff have downplayed strife with labor, insisting in the weeks leading up to Cuomo's announcement that there was nothing out of the ordinary at home.

The latest uproar, they say — about the proposed change in school governance, in particular, and pensions and overtime — is all about contract negotiations and control.

"When you're union, you try and drag in everything to distract your opposition," says Mike Keane, labor liaison for the city, "to put pressure back onto management."

These relationships started out strong.

"We campaigned for (Duffy) when he first ran for office. When I was elected union president, he came to my victory party. We had a relationship," said Dan DiClemente, president of the union representing such employees as kitchen workers and sentries in the City School District.

The school unions say Duffy's voiced opposition to mayoral control was key in securing their endorsement back in 2005. The police union was one of the few, possibly the only, public sector union not to support Duffy in 2005 — instead backing challenger and Democratic Party nominee Wade Norwood, who supported mayoral control.

At the time, Duffy said of mayoral control: "It has nothing to do with student performance and graduation rates." Today he says it does and has vowed to work for the school governance change until his last minute in office.

"What I lacked in 2005 when I made that statement was four-plus years of experience and observations that the current system is not providing results that match our investments," Duffy said, adding: "Let's be clear that the current proposed legislation is not 'mayoral control,' but instead it is a hybrid system that provides for city governance, an independent budget office, and a variety of appointed citizens and parents — all who have decision-making authority."

Mayoral control would change the dynamics of labor relations in the city, said former mayor William A. Johnson Jr.

"One of my reasons for questioning why the mayor would want to take over the schools," Johnson said, "is that the relationship with those (school) unions — and there are about a half dozen over there — is more contentious and a lot more time consuming."

Legislation was introduced last week in Albany proposing a July 1, 2011, implementation date (at which point Rochester might have a new mayor if Duffy is elected to state office).

Looking ahead

Within days of Duffy's designation as the Democrats' lieutenant governor candidate, New York State AFL-CIO President Denis Hughes contacted the Rochester Labor Council's Bertolone asking about Duffy.

"Right now," Bertolone said, "it's a mixed bag."

Should Duffy be elected lieutenant governor and resign as mayor, he would leave local labor relations "in a little worse shape" than when he arrived, Bertolone said. Again, though, much of that has to do with the recession, he said.

Grievances — which had fallen during Duffy's first term — are up 57 percent between fiscal year 2008-09 and 2009-10 to total 60, which is back on par with when Duffy took office, according to city estimates.

"This administration is the most difficult we have ever worked with as unions," said McTiernan, president of the firefighters union.

And from police: "You hear words like, well, the unions have to make concessions," said Mike Mazzeo, president of the police officers union. "The unions are aware of the state of the economy. It affects all of us. But it's difficult to make concessions when there is one thing missing, and that's trust."

Back in mid-2008, Duffy and the police union had a memorable exchange after an arbitrator awarded officers $296,000 in back pay for a temporary redeployment meant to stem a rash of city violence.

Duffy and his team blasted the "out-of-town arbitrator" for inconsistent and flawed logic, promised an appeal, and released a list naming all 65 officers, the additional wages earned and owed, and whether each lived in the city.

The union was furious. Duffy later backtracked, saying the city would not appeal, and that he never meant to impugn the arbitrator's integrity — a man whom he had known personally and professionally for 10 years.

But, as Bertolone said, labor relations with Duffy are a mixed bag.

"My experience has been completely different from what I hear from fire and police, and I have to tell you, their concerns are legitimate," said Ove Overmyer, who represents part-time library workers. Overmyer said his relationship with City Hall has never been better, and that Duffy always has been "honest and truthful" with members.

So what's the difference? "They (police and fire) have always advocated very strongly. I have always taken a very collaborative approach."

Tony Gingello is president of the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1635, the largest of the city employee unions.

"Compared to other administrations, they are not as good," Gingello said. "They make us wait months before they will meet with us. I'm not happy with them, I'll tell you that. But I just roll with the punches."

Ultimately, officials say, both sides need one another to succeed.

"Even if you disagree with the mayor, he is still the mayor, and he deserves both the respect and the attention," said Adam Urbanski, who emerged as one of the main forces of opposition to mayoral control as president of the Rochester Teachers Association.

Urbanski said his interactions with Duffy have been and remain civil and fair. "I think the relationship with the mayor will survive the disagreement on these issues," he said. "I don't think either one of us has a choice in that matter."

BDSHARP@DemocratandChronicle.com

Additional Facts
Union reform
Much like mayoral control, many of the reforms Duffy seeks must come at the state level.


Under state labor laws, the city cannot make changes to an expired contract and workers will continue to get step pay increases — except police and firefighters, who can avoid concessions and take their chances with arbitration.

Duffy wants pension reform, arguing that overtime should not be calculated into retirement benefits.

Duffy would like some control board powers but doesn't elaborate. Such power would provide overriding authority on labor contracts. "You cannot control spending unless you can say no to things," he said.