Bad Taylor Law revisions

Albany lawmakers could help taxpayers without hurting their union friends

New York’s Taylor Law governing public-sector employment has long needed reforming, and this year legislators went to work, making significant changes that in every instance moves it in exactly the wrong direction.

Say what you will about New York’s lawmakers, they are consistent. Given the choice of reining in the public employee unions or sticking it to the state’s voters, the voters always lose.

The shame of it is that the law could be changed in ways that offer urgently needed protections to the state’s taxpayers without harming public employees. State legislators seem unable to acknowledge either the possibility or the need for such changes, though, especially in an election year. Hence, the great giveaway of 2006, when legislators approved laws to: Provide workers with an automatic 1 percent raise in certain instances in which an employer is found to be bargaining in bad faith, but no penalties are added for unions that bargain in bad faith; impose as a contract the most recent union offer if the employer negotiates in bad faith; provide for an expedited hearing when a union alleges bad-faith bargaining by an employer; mitigate penalties against unions that conduct illegal strikes while an employer is bargaining in bad faith.

Some of these measures are preposterous and some merely dubious, but all of them presume New York’s public-sector unions to be put-upon and needing rescue. The opposite is true. It’s the taxpayers who need rescuing, from exorbitant public costs and the crackpot government that imposes them.

According to Governing magazine’s State & Local Source Book for 2005, the average pay of state and local employees was second-highest in the nation and its per-pupil education spending the country’s highest. Meanwhile, New York’s per capita state-local tax revenue was highest; while per capita spending was second highest, as was state and local debt.

Under that kind of unrelenting pressure, jobs and population are fleeing upstate. This ongoing condition demands action by state lawmakers. They responded by making matters worse. What do these people have against fairness? If a government can be forced to pay 1 percent raises for bad-faith bargaining, shouldn’t unions have to give up a similar amount for the same infraction?

In fact, shouldn’t the law be amended to encourage both sides to bargain in good faith, to push them toward reasonable contracts without the constant resort to arbitration? And shouldn’t arbitration, when used, prominently factor in the ability of any set of taxpayers to afford the resulting contract?

The failure to provide that kind of balance to the Taylor Law has helped turn upstate New York into an economic backwater. Legislators know that; they’ve been told it for years. And still, they do nothing. Their only reason is so they can be re-elected. It’s a cynical game that taxpayers always lose.

The only hope now is for Gov. George E. Pataki to veto these laws and to make legislators too fearful to override him. It will be a difficult task, since lawmakers generally disregard voters, but it’s the choice that remains. Pataki should reject these bills. The irony, of course, is that with 98 percent of incumbents re-elected every two years, Albany lawmakers can afford to put the taxpayers first now and then.

Well said, there is not much more to add. This type of governing has been going on for years and years, most of this type of legislation comes from the assembly and leading the charge is Sheldon Silver, of course our western NY delegation ie: Hoyt, Tokasz, Schimminger, Peoples all vote the way Silver tells them to. So much for any representation for us.