Relentless Tactics Pay Off for CSEA

ALBANY, NEW YORK

Dogged determination resulted in big dividends for 77,000 New York state employees represented by the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)/ AFSCME Local 1000.

After nearly a year of protests, picketing and tough negotiations, the union in March reached a tentative contract that will provide raises worth 13.6 percent over 4 years, plus other benefits.

“CSEA’s negotiating team has delivered on what our members said they wanted,” CSEA Pres. Danny Donohue declares. “But we could not have had the results at the table without the individual efforts of our members. They stood up in every part of this state over the past year to demand fairness and respect.”

CSEA’s members — who rejected an 11-percent raise increase a year ago — won the battle with Gov. George Pataki (R) through sheer force of will and savvy negotiating. Among the tactics used throughout the year-long struggle:

• Nearly 20,000 demonstrators rallied at the state capitol on Jan. 5, during Pataki’s “state of the state” address.
• 40,000 post cards demanding fair treatment were sent to the governor in June.
• Members in Montana and Detroit wielded pro-CSEA signs to remind him of the union’s demands back home.
• Several thousand CSEA members picketed the opening of the New York state fair to keep up the pressure.

In all, says Donohue, “We mounted a mobilization effort the likes of which CSEA has never seen.”

If the agreement is ratified in late April, members of CSEA, New York’s largest union of state workers, will receive an initial 3-percent pay hike retroactive to October 1999 and a $500 bonus that will count toward pensions. The contract will effectively deliver benefits worth more than 22 percent of salary to most CSEA members.