by REUVEN BLAU
Lingering hard feelings between the leaders of two of the city's largest uniformed unions surfaced in a letter to Correction Officers Benevolent Association members in which union President Norman Seabrook asserted that he could have obtained a better contract if the Uniformed Firefighters Association hadn't broken away from a uniformed coalition to negotiate its own deal.
"I truly believe that had we stayed together as a coalition, we could have pushed the city towards a better deal, perhaps an additional 1 percent, making it 5 percent the first year and 5 percent the second year," Mr. Seabrook stated.
Wound Up With 4s
Instead, COBA - which reached a tentative wage deal two weeks ago - and practically all of the city's other uniformed unions have negotiated two-year deals or slightly longer versions that provide their members with 4-percent raises in each year.
Tom Butler, a spokesman for UFA President Steve Cassidy, responded to that claim by challenging Mr. Seabrook to debate the matter on television. "Steve Cassidy would be happy to debate Mr. Seabrook about any labor issues he wants to talk about on [NY1's] 'Inside City Hall' at any time," Mr. Butler said during a Sept. 26 phone interview.
The UFA spokesman also alluded to the last uniformed coalition, which was headed by the COBA leader, and initially included the UFA.
"Mr. Seabrook must still be bitter that he took six months of zeros for his members in the 2000 to 2002 contract when the UFA and PBA didn't," Mr. Butler said.
During that round of bargaining, the UFA initially began ratifying the Giuliani administration's deal with the uniformed coalition providing 11.5 percent in raises over 30 months. But that process was discontinued in the wake of 9/11, and the UFA later sought and got a better deal after an arbitration panel awarded the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association identical financial terms over a 24-month period.
Mixed Feelings
Many of the city's other uniformed unions have quietly echoed Mr. Seabrook's belief that the most-recent coalition could have negotiated superior wages than the pattern-setting UFA deal reached in March.
Those unions, however, have also stressed the beneficial aspects of that agreement, including the creation of specialty pay for a small group of designated members, which Mr. Cassidy has described as "free money."
Mr. Seabrook's letter asserted that COBA negotiated the $35,000 increased starting salary for new officers without making any givebacks.
In contrast, the UFA opted to fund an increase in starting pay by accepting several concessions for future Firefighters covering their first five years on the job: a reduction in paid holidays each year from 12 to 6, a cut in night-shift differential, and the loss of most annuity money during that period.
'Chose to Cave'
"The Firefighters chose to cave to city pressure and run to the table by themselves and settle for a contract with many givebacks," Mr. Seabrook contended in his letter to members. "Their benefits were bought on the backs of new firefighters. I refuse to burden this organization with such a contract."
Instead, COBA extended its contract three months to help fund the raise in starting pay along with other benefits.
The lengthened contract, the UFA countered, is itself a concession that would affect incumbent officers.
Union letters to members describing contract terms traditionally only highlight specifics of the proposed contracts. But Mr. Seabrook used the mailing - titled "COBA Wins Best Contract No Givebacks'' - to once again rip Mr. Cassidy for leaving the established coalition of uniformed unions to make his own deal without apprising the other groups.
Will Shelve Complaint
COBA actually filed an improper practice charge against the UFA in March, asking the city's Board of Collective Bargaining to either void the agreement or rule that it could not be used as a binding pattern in dealings with other uniformed unions.
As part of its new contract agreement with the Bloomberg administration, COBA has agreed to withdraw that petition, which accused the city of a failure to bargain in good faith by employing a "divide-and-conquer" strategy to make a secret deal with the UFA.
Mr. Seabrook has not criticized every aspect of the UFA deal. He hailed the specialty pay provision as a "major homerun."
The increase mirrors a section in the UFA accord, which gave approximately 500 firefighters in HazMat and Rescue units a "specialty pay" differential equal to 12 percent of their base salaries.
COBA's specialty pay would place Correction Officers closer to par with Police Officers, Mr. Seabrook said shortly after the deal was announced.
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