DEP Cops: Contract May Foreshadow Change In Tone, If Not Outcome, Of Mayor/Union Talks
DEP Cops: Contract May Foreshadow Change In Tone, If Not Outcome, Of Mayor/Union Talks
BY CELESTE KATZ
When a group of Department of Environmental Protection cops visited City Hall while Michael Bloomberg was mayor, they recall, Hizzoner breezed past them as if they were invisible.
Not so Wednesday, they said: Mayor de Blasio paused to shake hands with the officers and thank them for their work protecting the city's water supply.
A deal just struck between the Law Enforcement Employees Benevolent Association -- first reported Monday by the Daily News -- was a special case that doesn't foreshadow the speed or outcome of negotiations to come with the 150 or so unions waiting to bargain. And city Controller Scott Stringer warns that the open contracts with unions -- representing more than 300,000 workers -- could prove the "Achilles Heel" of the new mayor's first budget.
The DEP cops, who came to City Hall to praise the deal -- the first cut with a union by Team de Blasio -- also acknowledge their situation is highly unique. But they say it's possible that the tide has turned in how the city deals with public workers, at least in tone.
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/2014/02/dep-cops-contract-may-foreshadow-change-in-tone-if-not-outcome-in-mayorunion-t