Gov. Cuomo warned the 56,000 members of the Public Employees Federation that if they rejected the contract their leaders had agreed to, he’d fire 3,500 of them.
Reject it they did, by a landslide.
Whereupon Cuomo dropped the axe.
State operations director Howard Glaser late yesterday announced that those layoffs were starting immediately — “today” — while blasting PEF leaders for having “failed to communicate the benefits of the contract to [their] membership.”
After months of negotiations, said Glaser, “we now found out that they do not truly represent their membership.”
He’s right.
For his part, PEF President Ken Brynien said “the decision to reject the tentative agreement was made by our rank-and-file members, who clearly feel they are being asked to sacrifice more than others.”
No doubt they do, the poor dears.
Never mind that:
* New York is suffering through the worst economy in generations — with unemployment rampant, growth nonexistent and relief nowhere in sight.
* The larger Civil Service Employees Association, New York’s other major civil-service union, overwhelmingly ratified a similar contract earlier this year.
* The terms of the rejected contract weren’t especially onerous — certainly not in light of Albany’ s ongoing fiscal woes.
* And most private-sector workers — the folks who actually pay New York’s bills — would kill for the wages and benefits in the rejected package.
Yes, that proposal called for an effective wage freeze and nominal increases in employee health-care contributions.
The goal: Save $400 million, the cash equivalent of 3,500 employees.
But Brynien said his members complained that the cuts “were just too many, and they cut too deep. The sacrifices were too great. They said, ‘Enough is enough.’”
Which is self-indulgent nonsense.
Public employees in New York are as cosseted as they come — an entitled class long protected by corrupt bargains struck between their leaders and morally bankrupt politicians.
It is to Cuomo’s credit that he refused to play the game. He negotiated a fair (indeed, overly generous) contract given the circumstances — and was spat on for his pains.
Now it’s time for PEF to pay the piper.
Its rank and file tossed 3,500 of its junior members under the bus, and that’s where they must stay if the state budget is to remain balanced.
Too bad.
Blame PEF.