Organization of New York State Management Confidential Employees is campaigning for a rolling lag payroll to create savings for the state after its members’ raises were withheld this year, even as those they supervise received a 3-percent bump.
“Despite understanding the vital need or even-handed treatment of the state’s work force, your administration has taken arbitrary and discriminatory action in withholding the 3-percent salary increases and other compensation benefits from only M/C employees and other unrepresented workers,” association president Barbara Zaron and executive director Joseph B. Sano wrote in a letter to Governor Paterson. “The unequal treatment of M/C employees, who constitute only a fraction of the state’s work force, must be stopped, corrected and avoided in the future.”
State: ‘Must Make Tough Choices’
The Management-Confidential employees are not protected by the same contracts that govern the Civil Service Employees Association and the Public Employees Federation, which prevented the Governor from reopening their contracts to close a wide budget gap. They instead agreed to support legislation reducing pension rights for future members. Mr. Paterson, though, has the authority to unilaterally rescind pay increases for Management- Confidential employees.
“The state is facing extraordinary times and we have to make difficult choices,” said a spokesman for the Division of Budget, Matt Anderson. “Any additional spending would just add to the deficit, which is at $2.1 to $3 billion for the current year.”
Ms. Zaron, though, said that the wage freeze in April has affected morale because some managers are now earning less than those they supervise. “People are saying they no longer want to stay in a management level position,” she said in a phone interview. “It’s hard to maintain commitment and dedication without raises. The problem compounds itself.”
Kenneth Vosilla of the Division of Housing and Community Renewal said the problem was most glaring for those who shared titles with PEF or CSEA members. “This is not only unfair, as the other state and city employees are getting their promised salary increases, it also seriously affects our current economic condition as well as our future pension benefit calculation,” he said in a letter to this newspaper.
Ms. Zaron asked the state to lag the payroll one week over the course of five pay periods to save the state $692 million by deferring a day’s salary for employees in each pay period. OMCE suggested several other ways the state could save money, including saving $20 million by seeking 500 volunteers to take leave without pay for up to six months; save $500 million by sunsetting unused “member items” after two years, and eliminating duplicative agency operations for a savings of $3 million.
Rails At Unfair Treatment
Management-Confidential employees enjoy less protection, because they were removed from Taylor Law coverage under then-Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller. “Your administration continues to violate the principles of equal protection when it takes action that causes the disparate treatment of a certain group of government public servants with respect to salary and other compensation benefits,” Ms. Zaron wrote in August. “The employee’s membership in a collective-bargaining unit is simply not a rational reason for giving that employee a benefit otherwise denied an unrepresented worker.”
Management-Confidential staffers work in clerical, secretarial and administrative support positions and are career employees who earned their positions through a competitive exam.
“By denying the 3-percent pay raise and other compensation benefits to M/C employees that were afforded to represented employees, the state created arbitrary compensation differentials amongst its work force that cannot be justified [which] results in a Classification and Compensation system that is a sham,” Ms. Zaron wrote.
OMCE has also asserted that its members should receive raises because city managers got two 4-percent raises in July to match the current collective-bargaining pattern.