The New York State Professional Firefighters Association (PFFA) was not at all pleased by the Empire Center’s news release last week highlighting the generous pensions of recently retired local police and firefighters. Read More
Tag: Unions
As argued in previous posts on this blog, Cuomo actually squandered a golden opportunity to deliver much more meaningful reform of the 39-year-old, repeatedly renewed but still temporary statute that has done much to drive police and firefighter compensation through the roof in New York. Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo says his proposal to allow up to three casinos in upstate New York will “create thousands of new jobs where they are needed most.” Now comes the small print: it turns out those jobs will be controlled mainly by organized labor, whose support the governor presumably is courting for a needed constitutional amendment to legalize casino gambling on a broader scale. Read More
Thanks to a last-minute bill language tweak sought by police and firefighter unions, Governor Andrew Cuomo’s watered-down “reform” of New York’s compulsory arbitration law will not apply to a number of unsettled contracts that hadn’t even reached the arbitration stage before the law was extended just before the Legislature adjourned last month. Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) records now indicate that up to two dozen contract disputes may have been carved out of the new law (Ch. 67 of 2013), with the full impact ultimately depending on how many of these employers are considered fiscally distressed enough to otherwise qualify. Read More
In an effort to slash its liabilities, Stockton is notifying its employees that their retiree health insurance coverage is about to be cancelled. And, Nicole says, this is no coincidence Read More
The Tier 6 pension “reform” enacted by New York last year applies to all state and local employees who join the state Employee Retirement System or the Police and Fire Retirement System after April 1, 2012 Read More
AUTHOR’S NOTE: PLEASE SEE BELOW FOR IMPORTANT CORRECTIONS TO THIS POST IN BOLD.In May, after months of turmoil, Albany agreed to a new package of taxes for the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Aut Read More
Eliot Spitzer did some huge favors for the state’s largest public employee union when he was governor, so it’s no surprise that the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) has endorsed him in his race for New York City comptroller. Read More