Documenting Labor Inside and Out
Collective Bargaining
When Strikes are Forbidden
The button shown on the right was created to be worn by members of
four state employee unions--the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA); the Public
Employees Federation (PEF); Council 82, Security and Law Enforcement Employees;
and United University Professions (UUP)--during protests over cuts to the state budget and
the resulting lack of raises for state employees in the early 1990s. The same message
has also been used by public employee unions when they have faced difficult contract
negotiations with the State, yet are unable to express their dissatisfaction at the
bargaining table through the use of strikes. Under New York's Taylor Law, which gives
public employees the right to
bargain collectively, work action such as strikes are forbidden. If a public employees
union chooses to violate the Taylor Law and go on strike, the consequences can be
substantial, both to the union and those members participating in the strike, as Council
82 found out after its members staged a sixteen-day
walk-out in 1979. Similarly, when the Schenectady Federation of Teachers struck in
1975, a number of its members (including the president) were prosecuted and sentenced to
short jail terms for violating the Taylor Law.
Being forbidden to strike does not mean, however, that public employee
unions do not engage in picketing or strike-like tactics to get their message across. Although they
cannot wield the threat of a work stoppage, they can seek to sway public opinion and to
publicly express their frustrations with a lack of progress in negotiations with the state.
Members of United University Professions have frequently conducted informational picketing
when contract negotiations with the State of New York have stalled or when UUP felt it was
not getting a fair deal at the negotiations table. During these demonstrations UUP
often seeks to stress the importance of its members to all citizens of New York--they are the ones
who teach the thousands of New Yorkers who attend the State University of New York. Wearing
caps and gowns and other academic regalia is a favored tool by UUP picketers to highlight
their message.
More subtle protests by members of United University Professions have come in the form of the buttons they have worn during stalled contract negotiations. During the 1980s these buttons sent the message that even though UUP members were without a contract, they continued to work hard, while the State "fiddled" time away. Some buttons also served as a reminder to UUP members, and to SUNY management, that although they could not strike, they would "work to rule"--performing only the job duties specified in their expired contract, while refusing to participate in any additional activities such as faculty committees which were expected of university employees but were not contractually required. Because the legality of "work to rule" under the Taylor Law has since come into question, UUP no longer uses that tactic in its contract disputes with the state. |
