Whenever public employee unions threaten or engage in strikes, the press is quick and near-unanimous in its condemnation. It rarely fails to point out that these strikes are illegal under the Taylor Law. What is omitted is the rationale underlying the strike prohibition: that strikes are not needed since the weight of public opinion will compel government officials to accept the recommendations of factfinders and to ratify and honor agreements. The falsity of Dr. Taylor's theory became obvious when the state legislature, in its recent session, did not even have to opportunity to debate and vote on the New York City-District Council 37 pension agreement. Furthermore, public opinion, molded by an intense and distorted press campaign against public employee pensions, brought pressure, not for honoring the agreement entered into, but for abrogating it. With the underlying philosophy of the Taylor Law now discredited, it is time to rethink the absolute ban on public employee strikes and to move in the direction of the state of Pennsylvania and Hawaii, which permit such strikes under some circumstances.
The story does not end here. Intimidated by public reaction to daily articles in the press on public employee pensions, legislators blamed rising pension costs on the fact that in some pension systems benefits granted were not paid for immediately. Since payment was deferred -- so the argument went -- public employers were more generous than they would have been if they had to pay immediately. So the Taylor Law was amended to require that, in the future, any new pension benefits be accompanied by an explanation of how they would be currently paid for. While this law was being passed, Mayor Lindsay reached agreement with Republican and Democratic leadership on a tax package for New City, all parties concurring in the view that the city did not need as much money as Lindsay had requested in the first place. One reason the city did not need so much was that the lawmakers "saved" the city $87 million this year and $120 million next year by passing a law permitting the city to postpone its payments into the Teachers Retirement System. The Daily News and the Times, which had supported the Taylor Law amendment requiring immediate payment for pensions, said not a word n criticism. It is evident that both the press and the politicians are more interested in the image rather than the reality of fiscal responsibility in funding pensions.
Minority Group Members Gain More as Union Members
Another vast gap between image and reality confronted us when the Mayor presented his revised budget to the City Council. The image of himself which the Mayor has promoted is one of overriding concern with racial harmony in our potentially explosive city. The reality has been racial conflict resulting from persistent efforts by the Mayor to pit black and Puerto Ricans against unions. When the transit workers (almost half of whom are non-white) struck in 1966 for economic gains, City Hall said repeatedly that the strike was directed against minority groups, whose poor could least afford to miss work, could not afford taxis and did not own cars. When Welfare Department employees went on strike for economic improvements and the rights of their clients, City Hall once again tried to crush the union by proclaiming that a strike in the Welfare Department would hurt welfare recipients and was thus a strike against minorities. Sanitation workers were accused by City Hall of striking against minorities because garbage piles up faster and presents greater hazards in overcrowded ghettos. Teacher strikes were labeled similarly -- the argument being that minority group youngsters could least afford to miss the school time lost during strikes.
The Mayor's revised budget calls for a savings of $7 million in the Board of Education budget to be achieved by firing thousands of teachers employed in afterschool, evening or summer jobs and replacing them with paraprofessionals. (The UFT supports the employment of paraprofessionals in afterschool non-teaching jobs where such jobs become available. But teachers now in these positions have retention rights, and the union contract prohibits firing them for such replacement purposes.)
The Mayor made his proposal despite the warning of the Board of Education that his action would violate the contract, pit middle income workers against the poor and pit white against black. His move is doomed to failure. Creating racial antagonisms in order to break unions will not work this time. Teachers and paraprofessionals in the UFT have by now learned that their strength depends upon their creative alliance. Minority group members have learned that their interests are not served when invoked for the purpose of breaking unions; that, on the contrary, their interests are best served when they themselves join unions and reap the benefits of organization.
In a budget of more than $8 billion there must be a better way to save $7 million. This is the time for the press to speak out - to help avert confrontation before it occurs rather than wait to place blame after the fact.