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WPCNR COUNTY CLARION-LEDGER. From Karen Pecora, President, Civil Service Employees Association. responds to County Executive Rob Astorino news release(http://wpcnr.com/article8938.html) December 27, 2011 (EDITED):
The County Executive seemingly continues a campaign of divide and conquer, class warfare, if you will, by continuing to imply in his words, that we are not deserving of our salaries. He continues to cite salary figures for society as a whole and does not state that a very large percentage of our membership has earned their current salaries by virtue of qualifying for, passing, and being selected, after real interviews, for our responsible positions that most times require college degrees and valuable experience in our chosen fields.
CSEA Unit 9200 made an offer to Westchester County, prior to the announcement of the Board of Legislators budget, to take 3 days off without pay in 2012, which would have saved the county approximately 2.7 million dollars and avoided layoffs. The administration refused.
Again, contrary to what County Executive Astorino has stated in the past, he is not interested in savings, only layoffs, including the CSEA Unit 9200 president and another officer.
This seemingly is to make room on the payroll for all of his appointees. Last year and this year, 45 real working employees were laid off with a salary of approximately $62,000 or less
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Fifteen (15) new (County) employees were hired (by the Astorino administration) with a salary of $90,000 or more, some collecting $70,000+ pensions from the county.
Many of these appointees do not have to take civil service tests for their positions; many get an instant parking space avoiding the 600-name waiting list to avoid the $105 monthly White Plains Parking Authority garage costs. Some other perks are invitations to lunches and parties with contractors.
Some of the (Astorino) political appointees attend overnight conferences paid for by Westchester County, receive County take home cars and therefore avoid car insurance and gasoline costs since they fill up at County motorpool gas pumps paid for by taxpayers.
We know that our positions in CSEA (and other unions) ARE NOT politically appointed positions.
Those political positions are occupied by friends of the administration, or given out for political favors, who enjoy special perks, rules, benefits, and favored status as to travel, hours worked, office accommodations, parking spaces, office equipment, assistants, personal printers, personal fax machines, and little supervision or accountability.
By the way, many of the politically appointed friends of the administration who have been placed in Westchester County positions are exempt from civil service rules and are paid many pegs above the average salary of CSEA workers.
Our current (CSEA) salaries are a result of starting at vastly lower positions, taking exams, achieving a college degree by attending classes at night, and getting promoted per the civil service rules, after passing exams along the years.
As opposed to certain political appointees, the vast majority of our members DO NOT come into County government making the high level salaries; some of us start as hourly or part time employees to get our start. Four of the current Unit 9200 Executive Board officers have that proud history in their resumes.
The civil service positions in CSEA, and in most of the other unions representing County workers, are competitive and as such are based on real merit, education, experience, and qualified credentials after passing a rigorous civil service exam.
Statements on Specifics:
Collective bargaining provides workers a chance to have a voice in the workplace. It meansnboth labor and management go to the bargaining table in good faith to find common ground.” This important reminder was in the Feb 2011 letter our statewide President Danny Donohue wrote to the newspapers.
The CSEA Unit 9200 leadership needed time to prepare for negotiations. Please remember this negotiation concerns the livelihood of 3,300 members and their families. Experience has shown us that negotiations are very difficult; we have many Articles, Sections, Subsectionsn and clauses in our contract that we know need to be negotiated. One main purpose of a union is to negotiate a strong contract with language that best serves our members and this task is not taken lightly. We also sent out and had to review surveys from our membership to ascertain their opinions about many facets of our contract as part of our preparation for negotiation. CSEA is a democratic union that abides by the wishes and priorities of the membership.
Negotiations have always been done during working hours, and while we did not schedule any meetings to commence after the work day, we would have stayed after the workday if we were making any progress with the County to come to an agreement. The Union’s Negotiating team spent long hours on nights, weekends, and during lunch hours to prepare for negotiations.
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The County claims the Canadian drugs prescription plans are illegal. If that is true, how is it that some senior citizens in Westchester County are using them now? Why are 40 municipalities in New York State using the Canadian drug plans? Using Canadian drugs would save Westchester County many millions of dollars over the life of the union contracts.
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Contrary to what the County Executive alludes to that we have free health care, we all know we have substantial co-payments, prescription costs and doctor and hospital deductibles. The median salary for a CSEA member is $62,000 per year, and 55% of CSEA members make less than the median salary.
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CSEA finds it almost childish that the official press release from the County Executive, (See revious WPCNR publication of the Astorino news release http://wpcnr.com/article8938.html), worked on by several highly paid staffers in the County Executive’s Press Office, during County work hours, wastes so much time and effort to speak about the meeting room. Our previous negotiations, during many previous administrations, have always been held in the quiet and spacious CSEA Local 860 offices. The current County negotiator, Vincent Toomey, has also stated he likes the Local 860 offices.
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In another tactic, the full negotiation team was initially denied release time for important preparation. This release time is a contractually negotiated clause. The County attempted to prevent the full negotiation team from meeting and involved the Dept of Law as a middle man to communicate to the CSEA leadership.
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CSEA has not refused to discuss the proposal made by the County; we asked for the County to also discuss the other 30 proposals the Union brought to the table, which by the way, could be negotiated to save the County money.
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CSEA has never received any “Jobs for Savings” plan; the plan was presented to the media, to the public and at a “Town Hall” meeting, but never given to the CSEA Unit 9200 President. The 2011 “Town Hall” meeting announcement was given less than 24 hours notice on a week when the Administration knew the CSEA leadership was not in Westchester. Understandably, the membership of all unions realized that another year of the same scare tactics was upon us and smartly chose to ignore attending the “Town Hall” meeting. By professional counts (from our members) approximately 75 employees from a workforce of 5,000 employees attended. (Fool me Once, Shame on You. Fool me Twice,
Shame on Me re the “Town Hall” meeting).
Obviously our membership is smart to understand scare tactics and divide and conquer tactics when they see and hear it.
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The Administration has been in the press asking CSEA to make concessions to our existing legally binding contract 22 months before expiration. CSEA statewide policy is that no contract is broken early or opened early when in effect. Another important purpose of a union is to vigorously enforce the existing contract and as such CSEA would not accede to the demands of the administration to forego any provisions of our 2006-2011 contract.
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CSEA has asked for a commitment from the County to avoid additional layoffs if there is an agreement reached regarding Health Insurance and other proposals. The County response was that it was illegal.
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The CSEA Unit 9200 Negotiations Team has continuously asked for the county to discuss the proposals that were introduced from the onset of negotiations; the only thing that was agreed to by the county was changing the wording “vacation time” to “annual time”. We have only asked that the county consider the entire contract, and not just one issue, although we do agree Health Insurance is one of the major issues.
The CSEA Unit 9200 negotiating team has never refused to meet with the county to negotiate a contract that is fair to the members, the county and the taxpayers. We are all middle class taxpayers in Westchester County. We strive to pay for shelter, food, and school taxes just as all working taxpayers in Westchester do.
CSEA has a long and proud tradition of service to all the localities in New York for over 100 years. Civil Service Employees Association members are those highway workers, mental health workers, park attendants, surveyors, construction inspectors, restaurant inspectors, and lab techs you know and trust. We’ve been around for more than 100 years now — we didn’t survive for a century by being selfish and impractical.
