The Public Employees Fair Employment Act refers to Article 14 of the New York State Civil Service Act, which defines the rights and limitations of unions to a public employee in New York.
The Employment Law Employment of Public Employment (Taylor Law) is a law of the State of New York, named after labor researcher George W. Taylor. It authorizes the State-appointed Public Relations Council to settle contract disputes for public employees while limiting their right to strike.
The law provides binding mediation and arbitration to vote for the union, but the termination of work is made with the penalty of fine and time of imprisonment. The United Federation of Teachers and the Uniform Sanitationmen's Association challenged Taylor's Law in early 1967. After the 2005 strike, Transit Workers' president Roger Toussaint was locked up for three days under Taylor's ruling.
Video Taylor Law
Detail
The Taylor Law entitles public employees to organize and select their union representatives. It defines limits for public entrepreneurs in negotiating and making agreements with public unions. The law also defines the provisions for the basis of the Public Employment Agency, a state agency that regulates the law in matters relating to the negotiation of a public strike. The Council consists of three members appointed by the governor. Each member must be approved by the senate, and only two may be from the same political party.
One of the most controversial parts of Taylor's Law is Section 210, which prohibits New York state public employees from attacking. For certain unions, especially law enforcement (such as police officers), it provides a binding arbitration of PERB in the event of an impasse in negotiations. For others, except for law enforcement unions, it provides a non-binding "fact finding", in which the arbitrator panel makes recommendations to the parties on what is considered a fair dispute resolution.
The penalty for strikes is an additional day of payment for each day of the strike, with a total loss of two days for each strike day, the abolition of "Dues Check-off", and the prison of the President of the Union.
The law does not apply to employees of Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad and Staten Island Railway, subject to the jurisdiction of the Federal Railway Labor Act of 1926.
Maps Taylor Law
History
The law came into effect in 1967, following an expensive transit strike the previous year and was named for George W. Taylor, chairman of the commission appointed by New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller to propose amendments to the Condon-Wadlin Act.
Taylor was a professor of industrial research at the Wharton University of Pennsylvania school for forty years before his death in 1972. He served as a counselor on employment issues with President Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson. Taylor is a strong supporter of strikes in private sector bargains.
Since its declaration, the law has been cited in preventing public employee strikes. However, public employees have been hitting since the introduction of legislation:
The United Federation of Teachers attacked in Ocean Hill-Brownsville in 1968 and struck for five days due to class size problems in 1975.
The fines were applied during the 1980 transit strike of the New York City Transit Authority and reapplied in the 2005 transit strike (involving both the Transit Authority and the separate unit of the MTA, the MTA Bus Company (for the latter, only workers who are members of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 100).
During the 2005 transit strike, both strikers and MTAs violated Taylor's Law section. Section 210 states that workers are not allowed to attack; Section 201, Section 4, states that employers are not allowed to negotiate about benefits provided by public pension funds or payments to funds or insurance to provide income for pensioners.
Additionally, after the 2005 strike, the New York Supreme Court in Kings County (Brooklyn), declared TWU Local 100 violate Taylor's Law, and issued a $ 1,000,000 fine per day, in accordance with the guidelines set forth in the law. The two smaller unions also represented the workers of the NYC Transit Authority, Amalgamated Transit Union Locals 726 and 1056, fined in smaller numbers.
Criticism and reform
While government officials backed Taylor's Law as a way to prevent strikes by city unions in New York, unions argued that the law was harsh against them. The union also believes that Taylor's Law does not provide incentives to government agencies to negotiate contracts in a timely manner and negotiate contract terms in good faith. There is a lobbying effort by the city union to the New York state legislature to change Taylor's Law, but there is some refusal or reluctance to modify the law.
With the creation and assistance of Taylor's Law, members of many organizations including Albany, NY Fire Department are able to unite, becoming one of the strongest political organizations. In 1970 was the birth of Union Local 2007, which was also responsible for paving the way for all other public sector unions in Albany, New York.
Taylor's law has been a frequent target for Upstate New York anti-union activists; they claim that it severely limits the ability of governments to limit expenditures on union workers, in a minimal way in the case of union workers striking illegally.
A special clause, the Tribune Amendment, mandates that in the absence of a contract, the terms of the previous contract continue indefinitely. This amendment protects the worker when the contract expires before the deal is reached, otherwise the government may wait until the contract expires, and then unilaterally change the terms. The Conservative Party of the State of New York, which seeks to abolish the amendment, argues that the guarantee of amendments to a permanent contract removes any incentive for trade unions to negotiate in good faith.
Others have argued that while there is no natural consequence of the Tribal Amendment under the National Labor Relations Act, which regulates private sector workers, the workers may strike. Some unions believe that it is basically unfair to abolish the Tribal Amendment, but at the same time continue the prohibition of Taylor's Law against strikes. To do so will not provide an incentive for management to negotiate a fair contract because it can always change the contract as it deems appropriate after reaching a deadlock, leaving workers and unions unlawful. That would be completely unprecedented in American Labor law.
The Federation of Master Buffalo, for example, illegally attacked in September 2000, which delayed the start of the school year.
References
External links
- The New York State Public Employees Fair Employment Act - The Taylor Law of the NYS Office Employee Affairs Office
- NYS Public Employment Relations Board (PERB)
- The Full Text of Taylor's Law from the NYS Public Relations Agency (PERB)
- Seek help to George W. Taylor's paper at the University of Pennsylvania Library.
- Seek help for George W. Taylor papers at the University of Pennsylvania Biddle Law Archives Library.
Source of the article : Wikipedia