See you at the March 25th Membership Meeting!

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(From PEF AIM, Jan 24, 2004)

Keep those postcards coming in! Quickly on the heels of PEF beginning the "It's Your Move" Campaign the State's Lead negotiator from the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER) called asking for a meeting of the bargaining Teams. This will be the first meeting of the full teams since December 4, 2003 when the Union provided the State a package contract offer. The State and the Union reconvened at the Main bargaining table Wednesday, January 28, 2004.

Bargaining is moving to a more serious level. As those of you have been reading the PEF Contract '03 updates know, the earlier phase of bargaining saw serious discussions being dominated by the State and PEF. Negotiations with the other eight unions who represent NYS employees whose contracts expired in '03 were by most accounts quiet while PEF and the State discussed issues like wages, health insurance, geographic wage differences and dozens of other important issues to PEF members. Shortly after PEF made a serious offer to the state on December 4, 2003, GOER,we believe, began to bring the other unions up to speed.

This development is a strong indication that negotiations are moving forward - how far and how quickly remains to be seen. It signals that the Governor's negotiators have some clarity about where they want negotiations to go. With their priorities more clearly defined GOER will now identify which of the Unions they can partner with in setting a wage and health insurance pattern.

Said differently, the State is now on a shopping expedition.

Where the negotiations with the State will end up and when is anyone's guess. Will PEF be the first to settle? We've said all along that we would like to be the one to set the pattern, and that perspective hasn't changed. That doesn't mean that we will rush into an agreement just for the sake of being first. Throughout negotiations, our position has been the same: we will remain at the table in active negotiations until we have obtained the most favorable settlement we can achieve. If the opportunity for setting the pattern comes, and we can meet our members' needs, we will not hesitate to move ahead. We will not, however, let the desire to set the pattern lead us to accept an inferior contract for our members. If the state chooses to partner with another union and we believe it represents less than we think can be achieved, we will take whatever action is necessary to prevent a bad pattern from being established.

Join thousands of your co-workers and tell the Governor and his Director of the Office of Employee Relations "It's Your Move!"

To motivate the state into moving forward with negotiations, PEF has prepared more than 15,000 postcards that have been distributed through our member mobilizer network. The postcards are a way for PEF members and supporters to tell the State negotiators that they support their bargaining team. Join us in letting the State know "It's Your Move!"

Postcards have been sent to all PEF stewards. Ask yours for one today!