Last week, at a Manhattan news conference that was also “live-streamed” on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s website, the chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) and the president of Local 100 of the Transit Workers Union signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) reflecting a tentative contract deal that will shape the MTA’s labor compensation costs for years to come. Read More
Governor Cuomo’s proposed two percent cap on interest arbitration awards to police and firefighters unions was stripped from the final Article 7 budget bill dealing with Education, Labor and Family Assistance issues. At the same time, the Senate and Assembly majorities were unable to get the governor to agree to their preference for a straight four-year extender of the arbitration law, which expires June 30. Read More
Rejecting almost every cost-sharing proposal suggested by the management side, a state arbitration panel has awarded a two-year, 6.6 percent increase in base salaries to members of the police officers union in the Village of Rockville Centre in Nassau County... Read More
Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano has reached a tentative contract deal with the Nassau Police Benevolent Association (PBA). That’s what Nassau residents have been told via Newsday and the other Long Island news media, at any rate. Read More
The ink was barely dry on Governor Andrew Cuomo’s local government “restructuring” bill yesterday when the governor made two more concessions to unions on the issue of binding arbitration. Read More
A pending change to the state’s binding arbitration law covering police and firefighter contract disputes will not cover pending contract impasses involving firefighters in Syracuse thanks to a last-minute tweak of the bill by Governor Andrew Cuomo. Read More
Yesterday brought a march on Albany by something called the “Educate NY Now campaign,” in which the union-backed Alliance for Quality Education (AQE) figures prominently. The demonstration served to bring attention to AQE’slatest statistical hobby horse — an “opportunity gap” created by the $8,601 difference in per-pupil spending among the wealthiest and poorest schooldistricts in New York. Read More
AFSCME, the nation’s biggest public-sector labor union, is mounting a statewide ad campaignclaiming that “politicians in Albany” want to “cut the pensions of firefighters, teachers and nurses by 40 percent.” Read More