WESTCHESTER / PUTNAM COUNTIES
CENTRAL LABOR BODY
AFFILIATED WITH NATIONAL AND STATE - AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR & CONGRESS OF INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATIONS
New York States Taylor Law
Forty years ago, the New York State Legislation enacted the Taylor Law which
established the right of public employee to engage in collective bargaining. It created the Public Employment Relations Board to administer the law. And it prohibited public employees from going on strike. The penalties are stringent: two days loss of pay for every day on strike; a freeze on collection of union dues. When the teachers' union under Albert Shanker went on strike in 1967, the first test of the then brand new Taylor Law, Justice Emilio Nunez imposed a 15 day jail sentence on him and fined the union $150,000.
To understand this law, it is necessary to see it in the context of the post World War II labor movement. In the years after WWII, millions of workers all over the country went on strike. There was even a general strike in upstate New York.* In response to this movement, the United States Congress passed the Taft-Hartley amendments to the 1935 National Labor Relations Act. One section of this 1947 legislation made strikes by federal employees illegal. At the same time and in direct reaction to a week-long strike by 2400 Buffalo schoolteachers, the New York State Legislature enacted the Condon-Wadlin Law whose express purpose was to prevent strikes of public employees.
*Whereas a strike pits the employees of a specific company against the owners of that enterprise, a general strike which shuts down all public and private business activity of a city, state or country, pits the workers against the whole system.
The measures proved unenforceable and when a new upsurge of strike activity in the public sector developed in the early 1960s and the most threatening 1966 walk out by 35,000 transit workers in New York City led by their firebrand leader, Mike Quill, Governor Rockefeller convened a "blue ribbon" panel (four industrial relations professors and a lawyer) to lend independent authority and legitimacy to a policy he wanted to put into place, namely, to restrict the ability of workers to use the strike as a tactic to pursue their objectives and to restore the anti-strike Condon-Wadlin law in a slightly more palatable form. As the Final Report of the Taylor Commission announced, it had been charged "to make legislative proposals for protecting the public against the disruption of vital public services by illegal strikes, while at the same time protecting the rights of public employees."
The law which emerged from the recommendations of this Commission was the 1967 Public Employees’ Fair Employment Act, now known as the Taylor Law and in the first few years after its passage, unprecedented numbers of public employees formed unions. So much so, that by 1970, 900,000 out of 1 million New York State public employees were members of labor unions.
The law first set forth the right of public employees to “form, join and participate in, or to refrain from forming, joining, or participating in, any employee organization of their own choosing.” (This clause is the basis for “agency shop” which is the right of an employee not to join a union. Although not a voting member of the union, the agency fee payer does have the right of representation and must pay the same dues as members.) The Public Employment Relations Board which the law created consists of three members appointed by the governor who serve for six year terms. The Act also puts forth a process for the resolution of disputes (section 209) which includes declaration of impasse, mediation, fact-finding and arbitration.
The trouble with the Act starts in section 210, “Prohibition of Strikes.” Not only are strikes outlawed, but causing, instigating, encouraging or condoning strikes is prohibited. Even absence from work without permission is a presumption of wrong-doing. The penalty for these “strike” activities, like the strike itself, is two times the daily rate of pay for each day. In the event that a strike is threatened, the law authorizes the chief legal officer of the government with or without the agreement of the chief executive officer to apply for an injunction, enjoining or restraining violation of the act.
In 1982, the Legislature added the Triborough Amendment which allows a workplace to be covered by the provisions of an old contract while a new contract is negotiated. In other words, the status quo is maintained and neither side can make unilateral changes in working conditions as long as good faith bargaining is proceeding. While on its face, the Amendment would seem protective of the unions, in practice it is an inadequate and often stifling provision which provides little incentive for management to sign another agreement.
In the first twenty years of the Taylor Law, there were 212 strikes of public employees. There continue to be strikes, but in the draconian measures mean that few unions are willing to take the risk. Over the years, teachers and municipal workers have taken this risk with often dire consequences including the removal of the ceiling on union fines, new penalties for individual strikers and the loss of dues check-off. The Yonkers Federation of Teachers has defied the law three times and paid each tens of thousands of dollars each time for that defiance. The most recent and dramatic example of a union that did take the risk was the 2006 Metropolitan Transit Authority strike during which the
Transit Workers Union Local 100 was fined $ and its president, Roger Toussaint, was sent to jail for days
Today, the Taylor Law remains the guiding statute for public-sector labor. The law is rooted in a rigid approach to labor and the collective bargaining process. When it was passed, the law was proclaimed as innovative and experimental in regard to its approach to public sector labor relations, it now lags behind those states which have rewritten their labor laws to allow non-essential public employees to have the right to strike. The Taylor Law does not even allow workable impasse procedures, limiting most public employees to mediation, fact finding and conciliation. Only a few unions primarily the police benevolent associations, fire fighters and some transit employees have been granted binding interest arbitration.
The Taylor Law came about for the objective of balancing the economic power between employees and employers. Its effect has been to impede the collective bargaining process and hamper negotiations. Reform of the Taylor Law has been a demand of state unions for many years.
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