CWA 1180 - News

Time to rethink the city charter's "Citywide Agreement"
by Bill Henning
July 2004

A couple years back, in anticipation of the then upcoming round of negotiations with the City of New York, I started my column with that classic definition of insanity—doing something the same way and expecting a different result. In that column, I argued for the need of the municipal unions to band together in a coalition to maximize our power at the bargaining table. Alas, other union leaders remained unconvinced of that strategy and the result was the pattern-setting agreement reached in isolation by AFSCME's District Council 37, which set the pattern for our own.

Read related story on coalition bargaining by clicking here

In agreeing to that pattern, Local 1180's leaders felt the major impact of the decreased sub-minimum "hiring rate" would not affect many Local 1180 members, since most of us don't enter the city workforce into titles we represent, but promote to them from lower ones. At the same time, the DC 37 concessions for new workers in sick and annual leave, holiday pay, shift differential, and terminal leave were untouchable by Local 1180. The City Charter (specifically the part know as the New York City Collective Bargaining Law) mandates that so-called "citywide" issues which "must be uniform" across job titles be bargained with the union that represents the largest number of workers, and that is District Council 37. Maybe it is time to seek a change in the Charter to eliminate the "Citywide Agreement" and the ability of one union to bargain away hard fought benefits without any input from the other workers it affects. This is not a position that is necessarily embraced by other members of the local's executive board. It might be a place for members to weigh in on the website bulletin board or in letters to the Communique.

The State of New York has multiple bargaining units, but no "Statewide Agreement." Any modifications of terms and conditions must be negotiated separately with the individual unions involved, making it more difficult for the state to impose the kinds of concessions we have seen the city win bargaining with just one union. Notwithstanding that fact, contracts remain relatively uniform with no great disparities among the groups with respect to vacations, holidays, and other such subjects contained in the citywide.

Local 1180's executive board now intends to begin planning for the next round of negotiations, which we hope to commence within the next year. To that end, we have adopted a resolution that calls on municipal unions to forge a coalition with as many as are willing. Resigning ourselves to the settlement we just reached makes sense only if we begin now to bargain the next contract—far in advance of its expiration June 30, 2005.

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