Like the men in Aesop's Fable groping different parts of an elephant, critics of a state law that governs employee relations — and therefore to a large degree how much we pay in property taxes — can't even agree on what the problem is, much less solutions.To mayors, town supervisors and fiscal conservatives, the statute, known as the Taylor Law, is so skewed toward public-employee unions that they're virtually powerless to break what they see as a cycle of higher and higher wages and benefits, and therefore higher taxes.
But to union leaders, the very same statute, which was adopted 40 years ago, unfairly blocks their attempts to use the workers' ultimate weapon — the strike — and lets employers drag out talks forever, since they pay no penalty for doing so.
The urgency of changing the law has risen on both sides, and for very different reasons.
Local officials point to a 40 percent hike in property taxes between 2000 and 2005 — about twice the inflation rate — and a growing chorus of angry citizens, many with horror stories about their seniors being forced to sell their homes or young adults moving away.
The concerns from labor groups grew out of a more specific event — the strike by New York City transit workers in December 2005. The transit strike was one of those rare work stoppages by public workers in the state since the Taylor Law was enacted — indeed, it was the chaos caused by repeated strikes by transit workers, teachers and others that was the impetus for passing the measure in the first place.
The law has been an unquestioned success at stopping those — there have been only a few strikes in the past decade.
But at what cost?
New Yorkers pay more in state and local taxes (more than $140 per $1,000 of personal income in 2005) than any other Americans except in Wyoming, which gets most of its revenues from minerals.
Any public employee will tell you that they haven't been getting rich for the past few years — raises in line with inflation have been the norm. But that's better than many private-sector workers have done. The average government worker now makes more than those working for private companies in most parts of the state, according to the Manhattan Institute's Empire Center.
The killer to taxpayers has been the steep rise in the cost of benefits, mainly health insurance and pensions.
Private industry has responded to escalations in those costs in large part by shifting more of the costs onto workers. But in negotiations ruled by the Taylor Law, with its binding-arbitration provisions for police and firefighters' unions and requirements that previous contracts remain in effect in the absence of a new deal, the public workers have fared far better in retaining the benefits most American workers used to have, but few have anymore.
Can taxpayers continue to afford the status quo?
Paul Francis, Spitzer's budget director, said this week that the governor has no intention of tackling the issue next year.
"We have to pick our targets carefully," he said.
The chairs of the two legislative committees that oversee public workers said they don't see the issue on their radar screens either.
That's probably good news for organized labor, which expects a report next year from its task force that has been studying the issue. It will more than likely call for some reduction in sanctions against strikes.
What Albany does best in situations like this, with opposing forces pressing for change, is nothing.
(democratandchronicle.com)
