Bloomberg's Bargain on Unions

Mayor Bloomberg didn’t win many friends in the Republican Party with his guest column in the op-ed pages of The New York Times on Monday. The paper’s weekly magazine had just profiled the rise of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a hero to many fellow Republicans and even some Democrats for painting union employees as the new “welfare queens.” Leading Republicans were voicing their support for Scott Walker, the Wisconsin governor, whose move to break unions has caused a national stir. Major conservative donors were bringing the anti-union fight to new states across the country.

Meanwhile, New York’s mayor penned an article entitled, “Limit pay, not unions.” The article’s teaser suggested “Collective Bargaining Can Help Lower Deficits.” The mayor began his contribution by observing, “In Ohio, Wisconsin and other states facing budget deficits, some elected officials assert that closing those gaps requires achieving labor savings and weakening labor unions. They are half-right.”

That this sometimes-Republican billionaire would assert a value to unions must have made the heads of countless Republicans explode and the hearts of certain fellow billionaires seethe. Mayor Bloomberg was clearly distancing himself from the Tea Party-fueled anti-union rhetoric sweeping across the country’s right wing. 

However, in true Bloomberg fashion, this wasn’t just a move with one party or another: he was blazing his own trail. While he didn’t win many friends in the GOP, his op-ed didn’t win any friends among public sector employees and their supporters either.

The mayor’s article wasn’t a sign of solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin, in support of whom over a hundred thousands regular Americans poured into the plazas of every state capital on Saturday. It was a calculated attack of a different sort. Governor Walker’s attack against collective bargaining is at the heart of the uprising he faces. Mayor Bloomberg’s stated support of collective bargaining is used to distract from a series of anti-union misrepresentations he continues to push into the public dialogue.

For example, the mayor has continually referred to pensions benefits for retired police officers and firefighters as “Christmas bonuses.”  It’s a clever rhetorical trick because we all agree that in lean years, workers shouldn’t receive bonuses.  But these are pension supplements that were negotiated as any arrangement is negotiated. Far from being a discretionary give-away, they are part of a contract.

Now, the mayor can seek to renegotiate that contract, but he shouldn’t misrepresent it. And he shouldn’t misrepresent himself as being a friend of unions when, in fact, he’s seeking to weaken their benefits.

Similarly, in his column, he suggests that teachers with unsatisfactory remarks cannot be laid off because of tenure. There is a process for removing unsatisfactory teachers, but there is also job security for senior teachers, whose higher salaries might make them targets in times of budget cuts. The unions are willing to work with the administration to expedite the removal of unsatisfactory teachers, and the mayor should focus his energy on those efforts rather than trying to undo the important tenure system that helps us retain quality teachers in our schools.

You can’t be anti-union and be mayor of New York. Many New Yorkers are able to afford the costs of living in our city because they get a decent wage their unions fought for. Countless more New Yorkers see firsthand how our public sector employees make our city run, and respect them for that work. The mayor probably does appreciate collective bargaining as an effective and efficient tool for the management of our city to negotiate with our workforce.

But that doesn’t mean that unions are safe in New York City. The mayor’s column was a roadmap for his own crusade to weaken the unions. The governor has made the public sector workforce a target as well. And so many workers have turned out at three Wisconsin solidarity rallies in the city because they know this isn’t just a fight in Madison, it’s a fight that’s coming to the five boroughs as well.

Mayor Bloomberg opened his column asserting that many elected officials are only “half-right” about their assessment of unions. Similarly, our mayor is only half-right: he’s right that we shouldn’t take away collective bargaining. But in his approach of misrepresenting the facts about union contracts, he’s just plain wrong.

Justin Krebs is a political organizer and writer based in New York City. He is the founder of Living Liberally, a nationwide network of 250 local clubs that create social events around progressive politics, and author of "538 Ways to Live, Work and Play Like a Liberal."