Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Even With Allies Leading New York City, Unions Won’t Have It Easy

Organized labor is having somewhat of a moment in New York City.

The labor-backed candidate won in both the Democratic primary for comptroller and the runoff for public advocate.

Labor was divided in the Democratic mayoral primary, but has now coalesced around the Democratic nominee, Bill de Blasio, who has a huge lead in the polls over his Republican opponent, Joseph J. Lhota.

With a lot at stake, unions — particularly municipal ones — can probably look forward to having friendly faces in citywide offices next year. But, experts say, that does not mean they will get everything they want. The biggest priority for the municipal unions is that they have been working under expired contracts and are now seeking nearly $8 billion in retroactive raises, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has said the city cannot afford.

Even if Mr. de Blasio is elected — along with the Democratic nominee for public advocate, Letitia James, who does not have a Republican opponent, and the Democratic candidate for comptroller, Scott M. Stringer, who is heavily favored in his race — the unions will most likely find themselves in a tough negotiating position, experts said.

“The unions have sent a clear message that anybody who thought they were finished made a huge mistake,” said Edward Ott, a lecturer at the Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at the City University of New York, and a former executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council.

Besides the citywide primaries, he noted that unions had been influential in several Council primaries, including a race in which a young Mexican-American, Carlos Menchaca, defeated an incumbent councilwoman, Sara M. Gonzalez, in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

But he said that the next mayor would face many competing demands, and — given the little enthusiasm among the public for increasing taxes to pay for raises for municipal workers — difficult choices.

“Of course he’s going to recognize what labor can, and did do, but he’s going to come under a lot of pressure from other sectors,” Mr. Ott said.

Labor’s victories in the primary will get unions “a fair hearing,” but not special treatment, he said.

“A lot of the major municipal unions were on other candidates” in the mayor’s race, Mr. Ott said. “They are now on candidate de Blasio, but I don’t think — and I don’t think they expect — that they have a privileged place with the next administration.”

Daniel DiSalvo, an assistant professor of political science at the City College of New York and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, said, “Up to now, the unions should be pretty pleased — the people that they’ve supported for the most part have done very well.”

But, he added, “Going forward I think what we’ll see is a lot more conflict.”

“Given where labor’s demands are for back pay, salary increases, no contributions to health care — those are budget busters,” he continued. “There’s no way any mayor’s going to see to that in full, and probably they can’t come remotely close to that.”

John Mollenkopf, a professor of political science and sociology at the City University of New York, said that Ms. James, who has close ties to the Working Families Party, would most likely be an advocate for labor.

“People say about Tish that she’ll hold Bill de Blasio’s feet to the fire,” he said. But since the public advocate has mostly symbolic power, he said, it was not clear how much influence she would have.

The comptroller has considerably more power, but his primary role will be in overseeing the city’s pension funds.

“If Stringer can get the money in the hands of good financial managers that earn high returns, I think the unions will be happy,” Mr. DiSalvo said.

Higher returns, he noted, would reduce the city’s required contribution to the funds and free up money in the budget to be spent elsewhere.

“So basically everybody wants Wall Street to go gangbusters,” he said, adding, “Obviously de Blasio wouldn’t put it that way.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 27 of the New York edition with the headline: Even With Allies Leading City, Unions Won’t Have It Easy. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT