AT ISSUE: OUTSOURCED LAWYERS FOR MONROE COUNTY GOV STALLING OVER CONTRACT RESOLUTION

CSEA Monroe County Unit 7400 members and the Federation of Social Workers
(FSW) have been working without a contract since December 31, 2008.
photo:  Bess Watts

Rochester, N.Y.--  As the County continues an effort to stall any chance of the workforce getting a fair agreement this year by once again entering a frivolous charge against CSEA with the Public Employees Relations Board (PERB), CSEA as our union continues to protect your benefits, especially your health insurance benefits both for working members as well as protecting benefits for members when they retire. The outsourced law firm whom is handling the contract negotiations has a financial interest not to settle in a timely manner.  Our only conclusion is that the taxpayers of the County are real losers here-- once again, we are getting fleeced by the tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars which continue to line the pockets of these lawyers at the expense of those who can least afford it.

The County’s new charge is that the Union Negotiating Team has made new proposals to the Fact-finder that were previously not discussed in any of the two and a half years of talks both sides have had or in any of the two tentative agreements that the membership has rejected. On the contrary, the proposals sent by CSEA are only modifications of subjects that have been previously discussed and although, it only causes a continued stall of the process, the County’s argument once again will be nulled by the State and CSEA will continue the Fact-finding process that has a great probability of showing that the Union proposals will be substantiated especially for the economic times we all have endured.

Another major piece the County is using to stall negotiations is that they are not willing to come away from is the issue of your health insurance benefits. They have a mis-guided belief that to maintain the benefit of having health insurance (something you actually work for) should cost you more by increasing your percentage of the premium drastically.

What they forget to realize is that if you have to pay an exorbitant amount for the health insurance, than it is really not a benefit to you as it decreases any gain you might achieve with a fair wage increase. That the County has this ill-conceived idea that the workforce will ever agree to this concession illustrates their position to continue to delay any real possible agreement, even more so when two prior agreements that did not include this extremely negative proposal did not pass.

“We are doing what needs to be done, the only thing standing between higher health insurance costs and the current rates we benefit from is CSEA,” said CSEA Unit 7400 President Cris Zaffuto. She added, “Fighting the good fight, our union is protecting our benefits and we’re still working 24/7 to secure a positive future for all."