Fix law on public employee pacts

As New York State faces an estimated $10-billion deficit, one fundamental change the state must make involves teacher salaries that jump up with or without contracts.

The Triborough Amendment, which makes these automatic pay increases unstoppable, became law in 1973 as the result of a court decision involving Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority employees; the State Legislature amended it in 1982. It says that when contracts for unionized public employees run out and new ones aren't in place, employers cannot alter the terms and conditions of employment.

That sounds reasonable, and in some ways it is. Employees shouldn't lose their vacations or see their pay halved during contract negotiations. The problem is that these employees, particularly those in public schools, keep getting raises even when they refuse to come to the bargaining table.

What drives teacher pay increases most is not raises bargained for in each contract, but "steps" and "lanes" that are permanent terms and conditions of employment. Steps are increases they get each year for added seniority. Lanes are the educational achievement categories they fall into, such as bachelor's degrees, master's, or master's with additional credits.

A recent median teacher pay schedule for Suffolk districts showed that an out-of-contract teacher could still expect pay increases of almost 3 percent a year from steps and garner an additonal permanent 15 percent to 20 percent jump in base pay by moving into a new lane.

The salary of a new teacher who got his or her master's in the first five years of employment would jump from about $43,000 to about $58,000, without any contract in place. If that same teacher, after 10 years, got a master's degree and another 60 hours in post-graduate credits, that salary would jump from $43,000 to $89,000, again, without a negotiated contract.

This leaves teachers without much incentive to bargain when contracts run out. They can wait for extraordinary deals because they do pretty well even with no deals at all. The Triborough Amendment, though, forces such raises no matter what is going on in the larger economic world, and that's irrational.

The protections of the Triborough Amendment are automatically lost to public employees who go out on strike, and teacher representatives thus claim it's a good law because it keeps them from doing so. Regardless of the amendment, though, it's against state law for teachers to strike.

With federal stimulus money gone and the state in fiscal crisis, cuts in school funding are necessary. Without structural changes in the way school employee pay and benefits are negotiated, touted tax and spending caps simply won't work. The idea that teachers get automatic raises not tied into their contracts, in this economy, is ridiculous.

The Triborough Amendment should be fixed in a way that protects public employees while they negotiate, but doesn't reward them for refusing to do so.