County Union Gets Raise, Before Collins Negotiates
Friday, March 7, 2008 06:54 AM - WBEN Newsroom

Buffalo, NY (WBEN) - As an incentive to draw the county’s blue-collar work force to the bargaining table, The Erie County Legislature has approved a one percent pay hike for AFSCME Local 1095, despite objections from County Executive Chris Collins who vows to try and stop it, possibly with intervention from Buffalo’s Fiscal Control Board.

The legislature approved the $1 million cost-of-living increase Thursday, because the lack of a contract with the 1,600 workers left them without cost-of-living increases given other unions over the past two years.

"It was … specifically for the year 2005, and it is a one- time payment for the local employees," says Legislator Betty-Jean Grant.

"The signal this sends to the unions is to bypass the county executive’s office and go across the street to the legislature, where they are going to be very open minded about handing out money we don’t have,"

--Erie County Executive Chris Collins

The raises will be lump-sum payments of about$600 per worker with a total county cost of approx. $1 million. They come in a year when Collins and his administration face contract negotiations with all 7 unions in the county’s workforce.

"It’s a budget breaker. It would indicate our legislators think we don’t have a fiscal budget crisis, but in fact we do, and we have a hard control board because of it. This is just a bad …vote, which long-term is going to impact.. my ability to negotiate in good faith,” Collins said, on the same day when legislators rejected a proposed $30,000 salary increase for his County Attorney-designate Cheryl Green.

"I would call it a million-dollar payoff to the AFSCME union special interests, which was highly irresponsible move by our legislature," Collins says. "

"The signal this sends to the unions is to bypass the county executive’s office and go across the street to the legislature, where they are going to be very open minded about handing out money we don’t have," Collins said.

The legislature passed the measure with the belief that it would not need approval from the county fiscal control board. Collins says he is not sure whether the board can stop the raise, but he hopes to explore that Friday.

In 2006, a fact finder recommended that the county give AFSCME a 7 percent raise, but only if they were willing to accept longer summer hours, fewer sick days, and higher health insurance contributions. They union rejected that and remained at impasse with then county-executive Joel Giambra.