The Mobilization Continues....



CSEA Monroe County Unit 7400 members and the Federation of Social Workers
(FSW) have been working without a contract since December 31, 2008.
photo: Bess Watts


Rochester, N.Y.-- Members of CSEA and FSW rallied outside the Monroe County Office Building Tuesday October 11th to bring attention to the fact that County government is dragging its heels when it comes to collective bargaining with County workers.



Thousands of County employees have been working without a contract since December 31, 2008. To read more about the Brooks administration's stall tactics, you can go here. (CLICK HERE)

CSEA Unit 7400 Members Tell the County: Quit Your Stalling, Stand Up, Do the Right Thing, NEGOTIATE!

CSEA Unit 7400 members have been working without a contract for over two and a half years and have spent the last 9 months battling with the County Administration over their petty attempts to keep members from receiving quality of life wages and benefits. At the same time the County continues to give raises to and hire more administrative positions at higher salaries while the County Executive and Legislators cry to the public that the County can’t afford services to the community.

Unit members have reached out numerous times to the County Executive and the Legislators to explain the importance of the services they perform and requested their help to push the Administration to come to the table and properly negotiate. This hasn’t happened and the membership, who continues to do what is right for the community every day, providing needed public services, is fed up.

We ask all concerned citizens to join and rally with us; we are putting all County officials on notice. “We do our jobs, you do yours! We’ll remember this November!”

MONROE COUNTY WORKERS RALLY FOR A FAIR CONTRACT

WHEN: Tuesday, October 11, 2011

TIME: 5pm to 6pm


WHERE: County Office Building, 39 West Main Street, Rochester

At 6pm we ask that you attend the first hour 6pm to 7pm of the Monroe County

Legislature for those that can. If you have a yellow shirt: WEAR IT!!

All CSEA Members are urged to attend.

For more information call (585) 328-5250

The CSEA Unit 7400 Leadership thanks all members for their continued involvement and will continue to keep all members up to date on the contract situation.

CSEA’s Representation Still Equals Benefit Protection

Monroe County Employees are on

the job working without a contract!

As the County continues an effort to stall any chance of the workforce getting a fair agreement this year by once again entering a frivolous charge against CSEA with the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB), CSEA as our union continues to protect your benefits, especially your health insurance benefits both for working members as well as protecting benefits for members when they retire.


The County’s new charge is that the Union Negotiating Team has made new proposals to the Fact-finder that were previously not discussed in any of the two and a half years of talks both sides have had or in any of the two tentative agreements that the membership has rejected. On the contrary, the proposals sent by CSEA are only modifications of subjects that have been previously discussed and although, it only causes a continued stall of the process, the County’s argument once again will be nulled by the State and CSEA will continue the Fact-finding process that has a great probability of showing that the Union proposals will be substantiated especially for the economic times we all have endured.

Another major piece the County is using to stall negotiations is that they are not willing to come away from is the issue of your health insurance benefits. They have a mis-guided belief that to maintain the benefit of having health insurance (something you actually work for) should cost you more by increasing your percentage of the premium drastically. What they forget to realize is that if you have to pay an exorbitant amount for the health insurance, than it is really not a benefit to you as it decreases any gain you might achieve with a fair wage increase. That the County has this ill-conceived idea that the workforce will ever agree to this concession illustrates their position to continue to delay any real possible agreement, even more so when two prior agreements that did not include this extremely negative proposal did not pass.

“We are doing what needs to be done, the only thing standing between higher health insurance costs and the current rates we benefit from is CSEA”, said CSEA Unit 7400 President Cris Zaffuto. She added, “Fighting the good fight, our union is protecting our benefits and we’re still working 24/7 to secure a positive future for all”.

Study Confirms “Privatization Is a Recipe for Disaster”

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO (AFSCME) was stunned to learn today that the United States government has spent billions of dollars hiring contractors rather than government employees. According to a study released today by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the federal government spends approximately $320 billion a year on contractors.
“In the wake of the worst recession in our lifetime, federal, state and local governments should not be doling out billions of dollars to private contractors to perform services that can be done more efficiently and at lower cost by public workers,” stated AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee. “Privatization has always been a recipe for disaster. This study confirms what AFSCME and its allies have been saying time and time again; privatizing services leads to cost overruns and in most cases a lower quality of services.”

The POGO report comes after months of criticism and brow beating by Republicans who claim that outsourcing and contracting is more cost efficient than hiring federal workers. Their claim, that hiring federal workers is too expensive with salary and benefits combined, was refuted by POGO that showed contractors in computer engineering and human resource management earn $120,000 to $130,000 more on an annual basis.

“The only ones benefiting from privatization are the private companies and the campaign coffers of the politicians who push for privatization. Study after study shows that privatization does not deliver the savings for taxpayers promised by its proponents. Public accountability is lost and contractors take advantage of the system to profit at the expense of the public,” added McEntee.

The full study can be viewed here:

http://www.pogo.org/pogo-files/reports/contract-oversight/bad-business/co-gp-20110913.html

“As public services are shifted to the private sector, we move from an open accountable system to a shadow government easily subject to manipulation. Instead of hiring friends, donors and lobbyists, the federal government should look to talented workers who are out of work, maybe then we could eliminate the waste, balance the budget and get our economy moving again,” concluded McEntee.

What is Collective Bargaining?

A humorous look at collective bargaining (Video)

For years, not many people talked about collective bargaining. But that changed when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Republican politicians in a dozen other states decided to eliminate the right to bargain collectively from public employees. Instantly, working people in all kinds of jobs as well as students, community supporters, faith leaders and others united to defend this basic right.

And why is it so important? Because the right to come together for a voice on the job is not only a fundamental right, it is essential for working men and women to have the strength to improve their living standards, provide for their families and build an American middle class. Collective bargaining enables working people who are union members to negotiate with their employers to determine their terms of employment, including pay, benefits, hours, leave, job health and safety policies, ways to balance work and family and more. Bottom line: It gives working people a voice at the table.

Ruling upholds labor decision against Monroe County

Repost from the D&C by Jill Terreri

Rochester, N.Y.--  Monroe County was on the losing side once again regarding its interaction with part-time workers, according to a decision issued by the state Appellate Division.

The county's survey of part-time workers asking if they wanted to still be represented by a union violates civil service law, according to the court, which released a decision this week.

The county had queried part-time workers represented by CSEA after learning there were vacancies in the bargaining unit's leadership. The survey asked one question, whether workers wanted to continue to be represented.

CSEA filed an improper practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board, and an administrative law judge decided the county had interfered with employees' protected rights.

The county then brought its case to the full employment relations board, which affirmed the administrative law judge's decision, saying the survey was "inherently destructive of the rights of organization."

When the county lost with the board, it brought a suit against the board and CSEA to the state Appellate Division, which affirmed the lower decisions.

"What it means is that the county was found to have acted in bad faith and really overstepped the legal bounds of proper labor management relations," said CSEA lawyer Paul Bamberger. "In that sense, what we've been saying all along in that they had acted in a heavy-handed way with us and be more reasonable and work more cooperatively with us, that position has been vindicated."

The county had maintained, based on a contract with the union, that a secret ballot election could be held to determine whether employees wanted to continue to be represented if it first received evidence that 30 percent of the members questioned their represented status.

"The county felt that the ruling by the state agency was incorrect and denied us certain rights and benefits that we had negotiated with the union and that the union had agreed to," said county spokesman Noah Lebowitz.

"The bottom line is we think employees should have a right to choose whether they are a member of a union or not."

The employment relations board found the contract language did not give the county authority to actively solicit opinions regarding CSEA.

The county is considering whether to appeal the decision.

Fight Back Against Attacks on Working People

From CSEA:

Middle-class, working Americans are under attack like never before. We're in the fight of our lives against the rich and powerful who want to take even more for themselves while leaving the rest of us to fight over the scraps. Some here in New York are using the budget problem as an opportunity to scapegoat public employees and blame us for a mess we did nothing to create. They are attacking our jobs, benefits and pensions and attempting to pit public and private sector workers against each other.

CSEA members need to know the facts and be able to fight back with the truth wherever misinformation is being spread.


Facts for you to use:

• Pensions
• 401(k) Plans
• Layoffs
• Health Care Benefits
• Triborough Amendment
• We're Not to Blame!

Pensions

• Despite claims that our pensions are overly generous, the average CSEA member's pension is $14,000 a year.
• We believe all workers deserve a decent retirement and a decent pension is not an unrealistic benefit for all workers to expect, especially when big business is making record profits.
• Public employees contribute 3 percent of salary to our pensions now.
• Throughout the 1990s, the state and municipalities paid nothing into the retirement system as Wall Street booms. Minimum payments are now required due to system reform to ensure accountability.
• New York's pension plan is currently the best-funded plan in the United States.
• The NYS Comptroller's Office has taken important steps to make employer contributions to the plan more predictable and manageable.
• No one should be scamming the pension system. The worst abusers are political hacks -- not rank-and-file workers.

Download a printer-friendly version of Pension Talking Points

401(k) Plans

• Defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) plans, are fine as a supplement to pensions but relying solely on a 401(k) plan would put people's retirement security at the mercy of the stock market.
• The stock market volatility of recent years has decimated many 401(k) accounts and would have wreaked havoc with our retirement security.
• Studies have proven 401(k) plans cost twice as much to administer as defined benefit plans with account and transaction fees.

Download a printer-friendly version of 401(k) Talking Points

Layoffs

• Layoffs don't work. They mean high taxes and less service.
• Layoffs mean management has failed.
• A layoff is bad economics. It takes a paycheck out of the market and forces increased costs and demand for social services.
• Unemployment goes up, fewer taxes come in, people have less money to spend and the economy suffers.
• Every time you talk about a layoff you're not just talking about a person's job, you're talking about a person's family; you're talking about a person's life.

Download a printer-friendly version of Layoff Talking Points

Health Care Benefits

• Most local government workers and all state employees in New York pay toward their health insurance and have deductibles and co-pays too.
• Rising health care costs are a national problem that won't be solved by simply passing costs on to workers.
• CSEA regularly works with employers to look for ways to lower health insurance costs. Our creative ideas to contain health insurance costs have saved taxpayers hundreds of millions.

Download a printer-friendly version of Health Care Benefits Talking Points

Triborough Amendment

• Since public workers are prohibited from striking, Triborough levels the field in negotiations, preventing employers from unilaterally changing terms and conditions of employment if a contract has expired.
• Triborough merely continues the terms of an expired contract while the parties negotiate a new one. It does not give workers raises.
• Without Triborough employers could wait until a contract expires and then simply impose new terms.

Download a printer-friendly version of Triborough Amendment Talking Points

We're Not to Blame!

• While New York's financial problems are very real, the fact is public service workers did not create them.
• We're not the enemy! Nurses, snowplow operators and school lunch ladies are not responsible for our state's fiscal circumstances.
• Many public service workers do the jobs no one else wants to do, working in prisons or facilities for the mentally disabled or out in extreme weather.
• Many public service workers are shift workers who go to work when most people are going to sleep and many cannot make plans for the weekends because their days off might be Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• While working Americans continue to struggle, Wall Street is recording record profits. Profits of $27.6 billion made 2010 Wall Street's most profitable year ever with the exception of 2009, when it benefited from bailout money and low interest rates.
• Public and private sector workers shouldn't be fighting each other. We should be fighting TOGETHER against our common enemy -- those who condone tax cuts for millionaires while sending the rest of us into a race for the bottom.

Download a printer-friendly version of We're Not To Blame! Talking Points