This report provides an overview of the current landscape of union representation, finances, lobbying and political activity in New York State. It concludes with recommendations designed to strengthen the rights of government workers and the oversight of union nances that are ultimately derived from taxpayer-funded salaries. Read More
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case with potentially major implications for New York’s government employee unions—and, ultimately, taxpayers. Read More
By an overwhelming margin, the state Assembly has approved a bill designed to partially inoculate New York’s government unions against a potential U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending the unions’ ability to extract dues-like “fees” from employees. Read More
Legislation introduced by the politically potent state Senate Independent Democratic Conference (IDC) with Republican support would scrap a decades-old worker protection and make it more difficult for government employees to change their mind about paying dues to a labor union. Read More
E.J. McMahon, president of the fiscally conservative Empire Center, contended that the state's unions have "a huge and very costly impact on public policy." He said public salaries and benefits are "basically the tail that wags the public-sector dog. The other half are employed largely in either construction or in health care, both of which are heavily dependent on government subsidies." Read More
Governor Andrew Cuomo and New York's second largest union of state government employees just announced a tentative contract deal that, if ultimately extended to all state workers, could add roughly $1.5 billion in salary costs to New York's budget by fiscal 2019. Cuomo said the state had agreed to raise salaries for Public Employees Federation (PEF) members by 2 percent a year over three years, or a cumulative 6.12 percent, starting in the current fiscal year. Read More
Some of New York’s worst tendencies in bargaining with government unions were on display yesterday in Buffalo—even before the school board illegally took things behind closed doors. Read More
The Empire Center found city school-custodian engineers were the highest-paid group of city employees in 2014, earning an average of $109,467. And their union contract made it impossible to fire them unless they were jailed. Some custodians did stellar work — but many schools looked like dumps. Read More