State Budget - Bergen Record - 2 of 6 - Unions drive hard bargain

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Published in the Bergen Record, Monday, July 17, 2006

Second of six parts
Unions drive a hard bargain

By BOB IVRY
STAFF WRITER

Imagine negotiations for a teachers contract as a poker game. In a saloon in the Old West.

On one side sit the teachers. On the other the school board.

Music plays. A bottle is passed around.

A dispute breaks out. An angry gambler flips over the table. The teachers reach for their ultimate weapon – an illegal strike -- and draw. School board trustees reach for their holsters, too.

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But there's nothing there.

That's how it's been since the passage of an obscure law in July 2003. The law revoked the right of school boards to unilaterally impose a "last best offer" on teachers in the event negotiations reach a dead end.

"With 'last best offer,' at least there was some leverage," said Charles Reilly, former president of the Ridgewood Board of Education. "Right now, there's no level playing field. By taking away the last best offer, one side will have to give in. And it will usually be the board."

School trustees aren't the only ones who feel caught one weapon short. Mayors and town council members say legislators have made it tough for them, too. They say the arbitration process, overseen by Trenton, needs correction because it consistently awards police raises that exceed towns' ability to pay.

So when it comes to contract negotiations, the high-stakes poker games that largely determine property taxes, local officials know who holds the best cards: the unions that represent the majority of their employees, the Policemen's Benevolent Association and the New Jersey Education Association.

Cops and teachers who, a generation ago, were underpaid and overworked are now enjoying compensation and working conditions that are the envy of the private sector. Experienced patrolmen in North Jersey routinely make $100,000 or more, and public-school teachers can top out at more than $90,000 and typically pay nothing for health insurance throughout their careers.

Their unions achieved their status through hard work, savvy use of public relations, lots of cash pumped into legislative and gubernatorial campaigns and a dose of good old-fashioned union solidarity. The two labor groups now wield the clout to drive law-enforcement and education policy -- and, in part, determine tax rates -- throughout North Jersey.

The political influence of New Jersey's nearly 500,000 government workers is partly a result of their sheer numbers. Census records show that public employees constitute just over 10 percent of workers in the four counties of northeast New Jersey.

But a Record poll, conducted last month, found that those numbers understated their potential voting strength. Thirty-eight percent of randomly chosen respondents said they live in a household where significant income is derived from public employment.

Government workers are more likely to vote than private-sector workers, according to the poll, by a margin of 66 percent to 48 percent. And their views differ significantly from the general population on issues such as privatization of government services and merit pay.

The NJEA has been called the most powerful union in the state, and it's not difficult to see why. The union, which represents teachers and school support staff in all but five New Jersey districts, says that 93 percent of its nearly 200,000 members cast ballots in the 2004 election, compared with 73 percent of New Jersey's registered voters in general. More than 1,100 teachers answered their union's call and volunteered at least three hours to a legislative campaign between the Saturday before the election and Election Day 2005.

"The teachers union makes the Teamsters look like pussycats," said Alan R. Geisenheimer, one-time president of the Bergen County School Boards Legislative Committee. "The question I would ask, is there any legislation the NJEA has asked for that they haven't gotten? I don't know of any."

NJEA leaders agree they have uncommon access to the corridors of power. Unlike some other public employee unions, whose members are concentrated around Trenton, where they work, "every community has teachers in it," said Joseph R. Marbach, chairman of the Seton Hall political science department. "They can be the difference in any local election. They could change what party controls the Legislature."

NJEA executive director Robert Bonazzi said the union's sway is based on its integrity.

"We can be trusted," Bonazzi said. "We have interests and we pursue them in the most ethical way we possibly can, so people in the Legislature feel good about the NJEA."

No doubt the union supports many worthwhile programs: smaller class sizes, family involvement in education and courses to upgrade the skills of its members.

But it also doesn't hurt that the NJEA is among the top political action committees contributing to legislative and gubernatorial races -- $1.5 million over the past three years, according to state records. The state PBA kicked in $218,495 over the same period.

"To some of my colleagues in the Senate, the teachers union is tangible and the general pub- lic is not," said Sen. Gerald Cardinale, R-Demarest. "The teachers union is a monolithic force; the public is not."

'A big stick'

It wasn't actual imposition of the last best offer that gave school boards leverage, trustees say. It was the threat. Between 1968 and 2003, boards imposed contracts just 15 times, according to the state Public Employment Relations Commission. Thousands of teachers' contracts were hammered out over that time.

"It was more of a big stick," said Vincent Giordano, the assistant executive director of the NJEA.

In fact, imposition often caused teachers to walk out. Both sides say an illegal 2001 teachers strike in Middletown, sparked by the school board's imposition of its last best offer, provided the Legislature and Gov. James E. McGreevey with a rationale for the 2003 law.

In place of last best offer, the law established a structure for continued talks. There have been no teacher strikes since the law went into effect.

Teachers say that's a good thing. Trustees say not necessarily.

"It may be because settlements have been uniformly high," said Malachi J. Kenney, a Red Bank attorney who represents school boards. "The unions haven't had a good reason to strike."

The bill was co-sponsored by former Gov. Richard Codey, in his role as a Democratic state senator from West Orange, and Robert Singer, a Republican senator from Ocean County. It passed the Senate, 36-1, and sailed through the Assembly, 70-10.

Singer said the NJEA didn't support him early in his Senate career, which began in 1993. Since 2001, however, he has received $9,800 in campaign contributions from the teachers union and its political action committee, according to state records.

Codey said the measure was necessary to correct a leverage imbalance that favored school boards over their employees in negotiations.

"The board's ability to impose its last best offer is not fair to employees who don't have the ability to strike," Codey said.

The NJEA's Giordano said that in order to get the law passed, the union employed the same tactics with legislators that it uses in negotiations for teacher contracts.

"It couldn't have been a more traditional bargaining process as far as I was concerned," Giordano said. "There was a give-and-take and an exchange."

When asked what concessions the union had to make to get the legislation passed, Giordano said, "We didn't have to give up anything on that."

Willing to intimidate

Teachers and police know the work they do gives them unique standing in a community. What could be more important than teaching our children and safeguarding our families?

Where is a community more vulnerable?

When push comes to shove, unions haven't been shy about using their emotional edge to get school boards and town councils to knuckle under to their demands.

With varying degrees of subtlety, cops use the power of the badge to shape policy. Teachers, too, can influence the direction of contract negotiations in their daily interactions with students -- refusing to write college recommendations or grade papers at home.

True abuses of that power are rare. But the potential for abuse can color a town's dealings with its most valued employees.

Take, for example, the nasty two-year turf battle between Emerson cops and the town's governing body.

The bad blood stemmed from a plan in 2004 to consolidate the Emerson force with Westwood's and the county police. The next year, the mayor and his allies on the council tangled with the police over the department changing to 12-hour work days.

Then, on Feb. 7, in a cost-cutting move, the council voted to lay off Officer Daniel Kalyoussef.

Ten days later, Officer Mark Savino stopped Councilman Frank Milone for an obstructed license plate. The next day, he stopped Councilman Brian Todd for allegedly going 46 mph in a 25 mph zone.

Milone and Todd had voted to lay off Kalyoussef.

Both councilmen contested the tickets. Milone filed a complaint against the officer, saying the offending dealer plate frame had been on his vehicle for five years and he had never been cited for it -- until he ticked off the Emerson police.

On June 9, Superior Court Judge Roy McGeady ruled that Milone's ticket was valid, forcing the councilman to drop his complaint against the officer. However, McGeady added, "I did believe there was some evidence of selective enforcement."

Milone is appealing. "I doubt I would have been pulled over if I wasn't a councilman," he said.

Todd's case is scheduled for a hearing July 28.

The appearance of a payback bothers Emerson Police Chief Michael Saudino.

"Do I think the officer fabricated the violations? No," Saudino said. "But I'm not happy with the timing of the summonses. I care about the perception of the police department. I would never want it to be said that we retaliate."

To Emerson Mayor Steve Setteducati, however, there was no doubt about the officer's motives.

"There's an intimidation factor there," Setteducati said. "It's nuts what's going on. Absolutely nuts. When you tell people, they don't believe you."

Michael J. Madonna, president of the state PBA, said a police officer would never retaliate because "he would be hung out to dry."

"Cops are always being Monday-morning-quarterbacked," Madonna said. "People are always pointing the finger. If a cop retaliated, it would be on the front page, it would be on the back page, it would be all over the paper."

Standing united

Most public officials -- and 52 percent of North Jersey residents, according to the Record poll -- approve of the job done by the police in their towns. Richard Loccke, an attorney who represents PBA locals in negotiations with municipalities, said that expectations are high for police in North Jersey, and police departments have responded by expanding training and requiring more education from recruits.

The police union wins big in contract negotiations because it presents a united front against towns that don't always communicate with each other and, in some cases, have bargaining committees that are far less experienced at police contracts than Loccke and his associates.

Said Mark Ruderman, an attorney who represents towns like Emerson in negotiations with police: "PBAs raise their money by going door to door and getting contributions from citizens, and a good amount of what they raise goes to good causes. The rest of the money goes to hire lawyers to fight the towns."

The PBA shapes policy, too. It was the raucous opposition of PBA members -- from both inside and outside the affected towns -- that helped derail discussion about regionalizing police in Emerson and Westwood.

"They distracted the public," said Westwood Mayor Thomas Wanner. "Because of the upheaval due to the stirring of the pot by the PBA, we never got a true analysis and we'll never know what kind of savings we could or could not have had."

According to Wanner and Setteducati, his counterpart in Emerson, the PBA ignored a proposal to merge the two towns' police departments and glommed onto the more controversial issue of the forces being absorbed by the county police.

Emerson and Westwood police distributed lawn signs that read "Save Our Cops" and discussed their opinions with residents during work hours, the mayors said. They recruited PBA members from neighboring towns to attend public meetings, where they boisterously opposed the plan.

Wanner and Setteducati both say the police played dirty.

"I felt intimidated," Wanner said. "They followed me from my home to my office. I was pulled over in other towns. For what purpose except for intimidation?"

"I was physically threatened several times," Setteducati said. "I had police officers telling me to watch my back, you'll get it when you leave this meeting. These are Emerson police officers."

Mike McDermott, the head of the police union local, could not be reached for comment.

Setteducati claims the consolidation could have saved Emerson $1.3 million out of a total budget at the time of $7 million. In the end, the town of 7,400 voted overwhelmingly -- 76 percent to 24 percent -- to halt discussion of any police merger.

Westwood residents never got a chance to vote up or down. The issue died before it went to a referendum.

"What I find most frustrating is the public doesn't question why a union argues a position," Wanner said. "The only reason a union will spend dues money to argue for or against a particular issue is to secure their members' position in a future negotiation."

Pressure point

As has happened elsewhere, the first thing that disgruntled Ridgewood teachers threatened during rocky contract talks in 2002 was to stop writing recommendations for seniors applying to college.

That's one of the pressure points for members of the community, who are ostensibly the teachers' bosses but still are vulnerable if the teachers decide to play hardball.

In Ridgewood, teachers were very professional, said Charles Reilly, president of the school board at the time. But fear of payback still cranked up the agitation meter for tense parents.

"I got several calls and e-mails from people saying we were doing a good job but they didn't want to go public with that," Reilly said. "Clearly, there were a lot of parents who felt they couldn't take a public position for fear -- unfounded, I think -- of retribution by the teachers."

The 2002 Ridgewood negotiations provided insight into NJEA strategy.

First, teachers refused to write recommendations. Teachers brought no work home. They packed board meetings wearing red T-shirts bearing the union logo. They gathered at Ridgewood High School football games wearing the T-shirts. Then they wore the shirts to school on Fridays. Then came "Support Ridgewood Teachers" lawn signs. Then came marches and picketing the homes of board members.

Then came the threat of a strike.

"Our biggest job action was working the contracted seven-hour, 35-minute day," said Maria Cannon, a Ridgewood middle school teacher who has since become president of the local. "That set the community on its ear, because they know most of us go above and beyond."

The snag in negotiations, Reilly said, was health benefits. The school board wanted to cover new teachers with a different health plan than the one that covered other teachers. It was identical to the old plan, Reilly said, but it was written by a different insurance carrier. Within four or five years, he said, it would have saved the district $600,000 out of a total of $3.5 million in annual health-care costs.

The teachers balked.

"What was communicated to us by union leaders was that the health coverage they were offering wasn't good enough," Cannon said. "We totally wanted to help Ridgewood families [with lower tax bills], but we didn't understand why it should come out of our benefits."

The teachers got what they wanted. Last summer, when the contract expired, they got what they wanted again -- no new health insurance carrier for new hires.

"You're looking at a board of five members against the Ridgewood Education Association, which has 450 members, and the NJEA, with almost 200,000, and it's not a fair fight," said Mark Bombace, the current Ridgewood school board president. "At some point the taxpayers will have a revolt and they'll take it out on the school boards because it's the only budget they can vote on."

Maybe the first shots in that revolt already have been fired. In April's elections, 256 school budgets around the state were defeated, the highest number since 1994.

Staff Writers Benjamin Lesser, Adrienne Lu, Maya Kremen and Deena Yellin contributed to this article. E-mail: ivry@northjersey.com

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