Buffalo News - Unions discussing citywide strike
    Morale hits bottom as result of wage freeze

    Buffalo’s largest public unions are discussing a possible citywide strike that would send teachers, firefighters, police officers and other employees walking off the job, The Buffalo News has learned.

    Union leaders met privately Wednesday to discuss strategies for dealing with what they described as eroding morale among employees who have been working for 27 months under a wage freeze imposed by the control board.

    Buffalo Teachers Federation President Philip Rumore issued a terse written statement, confirming that a citywide strike was one option discussed during the hourlong meeting.

    “On the advice of legal counsel, that is all that we will say on the subject,” his statement read.

    But union leaders had plenty to say when a reporter reminded them that state law bars public employees from striking.

    “Genocide of the working class is also illegal,” said Police Benevolent Association President Robert P. Meegan Jr., whose union has filed a lawsuit in a bid to win the right to strike.


Genocide? Genocide? Let me tell you something Mr. Meegan your wage freeze is far from genocide, it may be an inconvience for your union but the real problem is how out of touch with reality you are. Average salary in Buffalo is $24,000 a year and average salary of a Buffalo cop?
Buffalo, NY $45,733 to $59,950
Let’s look at the facts.

Starting in April 2004, the city control board withheld raises - 3.4 percent each of two years for police - for all city workers. However, just before that, police received a 3.4 percent raise and an additional $5,000 increase in pay. That’s not a one-time bonus, but a payment to their base pay that will increase their income with future raises. Police now average $57,978 a year and, according to the control board, in 2004 received an average wage and benefits package totaling $96,854, which is now closer to $100,000. The lowest-paid police officer costs the city $90,899 in 2006. Erie County per capita income is $20,357; New York’s median income was $39,463 in 2005.

So when you talk genocide it appears it is coming from your end toward the people of the city of Buffalo residents. Get a grip on your self.

    “Sometimes you have to do what you have to do,” Rumore added. “Our members say we need to wake up the city and let people know how angry they are.”

and sometimes Mr Rumore you will have to start listening to the People and their anger toward you and your demands. When the schools start educating our children and when you allow more Charter Schools to open, then maybe your government funded schools will have some competition and start doing their jobs. Maybe you should step down from your position bacause you are doing more damage to your cause every time you open your mouth.

    Fire union President Joseph E. Foley said some firefighters who have been denied step increases since the wage freeze took effect in April 2004 have lost more than $20,000. He questioned the control board’s sincerity in its assertion that it is willing to consider lifting the wage freeze if other money-saving strategies can be found.

    “When they have absolute authority and no accountability, why would they want to talk?” Foley said.

Because they don’t have to. The rules have been set and we all have to abide by them. That is one thing you don’t understand. Demand, demand, demand is all you people do. It is about time you start to listen to the people of the city and county. Everything is not about your comfort in life.

    Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority spokeswoman Nancy Brock said Wednesday night the control board would have no comment on the unions’ discussion of a citywide strike.

    Unions are likely to launch several other strategies to convey their frustration, Rumore said. They include:

    • Picketing the homes of control board members. • Picketing the businesses of some control board members. • An advertising blitz, using billboards and radio commercials to air the unions’ side of the story.

    • Additional legal challenges, including a likely court fight over how long the control board’s active oversight period should last.

    Rumore said he has never seen city employees so despondent.

    “Morale is at an all-time low,” he said. “There’s a sense of hopelessness. There’s no light at the end of the tunnel, unless it’s the light from an approaching train.”

    Mayor Byron W. Brown, who has expressed a desire to find a way to lift the wage freeze, underscored that strikes are illegal under the state’s Taylor Law.

    “We don’t expect to see any job actions with the bargaining units directly under the city administration,” Brown said. “The fact that their legal counsel wouldn’t let [unions] comment any further speaks for itself.”

They accuse us of genocide when their salaries, benefits, pensions, healthcare far exceed the majority of the public that is paying for all their demands. It has been a continuing fleecing of the taxpayers by the unions that have put us into the fiscal chaos we are in and all they want is more and more. Now falling back on 1950’s union thug tactics verbally abusing and protesting, wait till they start breaking windshields and flattening tires, that will show us how big and bad they are.

Union thugs from Niagara Falls are serving time in jail for stuff like this, is that what these union thugs want? Grow up.