February 17, 2023 NYC Office of the Mayor
Brendan McGuire, Chief Counsel to the Mayor and City Hall: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us here this morning. We have a very important announcement for both the city and also for a very high number of our valuable employees here in the city and a day that is a very important one for all of them. So without further ado, I will introduce our mayor, Eric Adams. Thank you.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you, Brendan. Today, we are announcing the contract, a settlement with DC 37. This is not only a professional moment for me, but it's a personal moment. Many people know on the campaign trail, I talked about my mom being a DC 37 food service worker. And I used to wonder, as a child, why would she carry the Tupperware with her to work every day when she would come home being a proud woman filled with the leftovers from working in the kitchen at Amistad Daycare Center. And she would just state that the stove cooked the food a little better. She did not want to tell us that she could not afford, on her salary, to be able to buy the groceries that she needed to raise my five siblings and me.
I thought about that later in life as I was on the campaign trail, and as I saw throughout the years of becoming eventually a DC 37 member myself in the Kings County District Attorney's Office, never making enough to make ends meet, always seemed to be behind the bill collectors. And just wondering if we would be able to get the right contract, just make the right agreements, have the right healthcare, and to have the right just to be able to provide for our families. And then later becoming a union member in the Police Department and serving there for 22 years. This is in my blood. And it was so important for me to settle this contract with this union.
Henry Garrido is not only a good union leader, he's a good New Yorker. He has taken into account how do you negotiate in a very strong way on behalf of your members, but also understands the fullness of the problems that this city is facing. How do we lift up our members, but at the same time, make sure we come together and sit down and find solutions to these amazing moments that we are in?
It was Henry Garrido who planted the seed as we were looking at the employment crises that we were having in city services. That created the concept of a hiring hall that we held just a few days ago. Henry Garrido looked at the challenges that we are facing with our healthcare fund and coming up with thoughtful ways of addressing them. I think that when the final analysis is written during this period of time, you're going to find that not only do we have, as I stated, a great union leader, but a great New Yorker. And I cannot thank you enough for your leadership during these difficult times.
I have not made this a secret that I am a blue-collar mayor. I believe in the working men and women of this city and what we have to offer. And today, I am extremely proud to announce we have reached a landmark labor agreement with DC 37, one of the city's largest public sector unions and the backbone of our city government. This tentative agreement covers 100,000 city workers: 911 operators who work around the clock to ensure our safety, social service workers who protect our city's children, the people helping your kids cross the street, who feed our children in schools as food service workers, and the dedicated city workers who staff your libraries and your parks.
This is the first tentative agreement we have reached under this administration. It's a great deal for workers and fair to the city taxpayers, and it wouldn't have happened without the tireless effort of our Office of Labor Relation Commissioner Renee Campion. Renee called me late last night. Her and my counsel Brendan McGuire were up late last night, and they called me and shared that we were going to land the plane.
And the dedicated members of this great union that stands behind me, many of them I've known for so many years. Dilcy and I were transit police officers together, and now she is in charge of one of the locals. I want to thank all of them for what they have done and how they played a part in getting this done.
This tentative agreement on a five-year contract provides 3 percent annual raises for the first four years and 3.25 percent in the fifth year. The deal also includes a ratification bonus of $3,000 for employees active on the date the agreement is ratified. As part of this agreement, the city and DC 37 will also create a $70 million equity fund to support recruitment and retention.
Thoughtful. We realize that the post-Covid era has brought a new dimension to work, and how we are retaining and having flexibilities in work schedule is something we must face. But when you have over 300,000 employees, you cannot do it with a knee-jerk reaction. You must be thoughtful and calculative, and make sure you bring equity in how it is carried out.
We're also going to raise the minimum pay rate for any DC 37 title covered by this agreement to $18 an hour, above the statewide minimum wage. This agreement also established a committee to explore the flexible scheduling and other measures to improve employee morale and retention. The committee will produce a pilot program that includes remote work by no later than June 1st of this year, keeping in mind equity all the way.
Under this agreement, a Labor Management Pandemic Response Committee will be created to discuss issues related to pandemic response to make sure we are prepared for the next pandemic. We cannot be caught like we were the last time, and that includes P.P.E.s that union leaders had to fight to ensure that their members were receiving the proper P.P.E.s during the last pandemic.
This agreement also established a union-administered fund to help DC 37 members with childcare expenses — really the brainchild of Henry Garrido's understanding that childcare is crucial for those members who he represents. And the city will also contribute with a $3 million-a-year contribution to this fund.
As a former union member and a city employee, I know how hard DC 37 members work for this city. I know what they went through during the pandemic. They did not surrender. They did not give up. They rose to the occasion. And today, this agreement is our opportunity to state that they matter, we know who they are, and we are with you. We need DC 37. We need every aspect of their contribution to this city. When you dial 911, there's a DC 37 member on the other side. When your child crosses the street on their way to school, there's a DC 37 member making sure that they're safe. When you see your children walk through the cafeteria to get food, those food service workers are DC 37 members. Every aspect of our lives is represented by the men and women of DC 37.
This is a proud moment for me as a mayor of this city. It's a proud moment as a son of Dorothy Adams, a DC 37 member. Thank you, Henry.
McGuire: Yes. It's now my pleasure to introduce the executive director of DC 37, Henry Garrido.
Henry Garrido, Executive Director, DC 37: Good morning. Let me first start by thanking the mayor for that, his kind words and the kind address and introduction. I want to particularly thank Commissioner Campion for the hard work, Brendan and the team on the City of New York negotiating this contract. But I also want to take a moment to thank my team members, Jahmila Edwards and Rose Lovaglio-Miller, who are part of this amazing team in addition to the local presidents that make the bargaining committee, about 60 of them that participated in a long marathon negotiations. But most importantly, I want to take the moment to thank the members of DC 37 who keep the city running, whose sacrifices during the worst pandemic the city has ever seen kept the city going at a time when New Yorkers needed them most. This is going to be my 27th year in DC 37. I have been in every position conceivable within the union.
This is by far the most challenging and the most difficult negotiations we have had to go through because of the problems with healthcare, as you heard the mayor mention because of the difficulties of the pandemic, because of the hard-to-recruit titles, because of challenges like flexible work schedule. And so, I want to take a moment to thank the members for their patients and their support for the union as we went through this very difficult process. Look, this collective bargaining agreement we are announcing today those three fundamental things. First, it provides a fair and reasonable wage for our members, and fair for the taxpayers as well, and so we want to acknowledge that work. Secondly, it addresses some of the biggest challenges for the lowest-paid city workers, setting up a minimum wage of $18 an hour where folks are trying to figure this out in Albany and other places around the country. It's a very big deal to the thousands of DC 37 members who are struggling every day. I want to personally thank the mayor in acknowledging that in a city this big with so many challenges, people who make minimum wage are struggling just to keep ends meet with the way the inflation is going. Raising that minimum wage for those thousands of workers, it was really important.
And thirdly, and I think equally as important, we need to remain competitive in city government and that means thinking differently in the way that we hire, recruit, and retain workers. That means a flexible work schedule. One that acknowledges that the workplace has changed. One that provides the possibility for remote work where available and necessary. One that allows (inaudible) a flex time and different work schedules. Four week days, 10 hour schedules, 12 hour schedules, things that make sense that for years we've been trying to get. But this is an opportunity, and I'm glad to have been a partner with the mayor who was willing to listen to those difficult challenges because as he said, we are in a situation where one size doesn't fit all.
It is now up to the members to decide. We are confident, based on the feedback from the bargaining committee, that our members are going to ratify this contract, but it's really up to them right now. Again, on behalf of those members, on behalf of the City of New York, Mr. Mayor, your team, we want to thank you. And this process was very difficult, but we got it done. Thank you very much.
McGuire: And finally, we'll hear this morning from our tireless labor commissioner, Renee Campion, who is always a fierce advocate for the city but who, like the mayor, fully appreciates the contributions of our union employees. Renee.
Commissioner Renee Campion, Office of Labor Relations: Thank you. Thank you, Brendan. First, I'd like to thank Mayor Adams. I want to thank you for putting your trust in me to represent you as the chief negotiator. I really do appreciate that. I also want to thank members of my team, my negotiating team, my first deputy, Dan Pollak, who has been with me every step of the way through this entire process. He's actually a new dad of only four weeks. He has a new baby girl, but he's been with me, so now hopefully he can spend a little bit more time doing that. Now, I also like to thank members of the administration: Sheena Wright, the first deputy mayor, Sylvia Hinds-Radix, the judge corporation counsel, Ingrid Lewis-Martin, chief counsel to the mayor, and also Brendan, of course, who has provided me with extremely important counsel and was up with me until the wee hours, as the mayor mentioned.
And I want to thank Henry Garrido. His team, Henry and his team, we've known each other for a long time. Long time. We've worked with each other for many years, and our longstanding relationship has always assisted us in getting through the many challenges and difficult issues the city and the workforce faces. We've always maintained a respectful working relationship that I know we all appreciate very much. The mayor discussed the central components of this tentative agreement, which provides fair wage increases to DC 37 members covered by the agreement while maintaining responsibility to our city's taxpayers. I want to give a few more details about the agreement. This deal goes back to May 26th, 2021. These workers have not seen a wage increase since before the start of Covid in 2019. It goes back to May 26th, ‘21. It's a five year, five month, 12 day agreement.
It will expire on November 6th, 2026, the extra five months and 12 days extending the contract allows us to fund many of the items included in this tentative agreement. The mayor mentioned there's a number of wage increases. There are four 3 percent wage increases, one in each year, and a 3.25 percent increase in the final year, retroactive to the first day of the contract. To be more specific, May 26th, 2021, 3 percent general wage increase, all employees. May 26th, 2022, 3 percent wage increase, and that is compounded to all employees. May 26th, 2023, a 3 percent wage increase, all employees, compounded. May 26th, 2024, 3 percent and May 26th, 2025, a 3.25 percent increase. The total compounded wage increases total 16.21 percent.
There's also a ratification bonus that the mayor mentioned. There's a lump sum bonus of $3,000 for employees active on payroll at the time the agreement is ratified. There's also… We created through this agreement an equity fund. The city and DC 37 agreed to create an equity fund, which sets aside funding to be used for particular positions experiencing severe recruitment and retention challenges or where there's been a significant change in job duties. This equity fund will allow us to direct dollars where they are most needed in a time when many occupations in the City of New York are experiencing recruitment and retention challenges. There will be a panel — we did this before in the last agreement — there will be a similar panel consisting of one DC 37 representative, one city representative, and a neutral party who will make determinations about where to direct this funding. The value of this funding is approximately $73 million.
Next is the $18 minimum rate, and that is effective this July 1st, 2023. All DC 37 titles covered by this agreement will receive a minimum of $18 per hour as of July 1st, 2023. The cost of this increase, about $10 million, will be funded by the equity fund that I previously mentioned. Next is the childcare trust fund. DC 37 will establish a childcare trust fund to provide support for its members, as Henry described. The fund will receive $3 million every year going forward from the city as part of this overall agreement. Next is the Work Flexibility Committee. The city and the union will establish a committee to discuss work flexibility and other measures to enhance employee morale and recruitment and retention. We have heard the workers loud and clear. We have a joint goal now of establishing a remote work pilot within 60 days after ratification by June 1st, 2023.
We will discuss together, the union and the city representatives, other work flexibility arrangements in addition to remote work, including flexible scheduling, compressed work weeks, as well as transit benefits, and any other measures that can improve employee morale and enhance the city's ability to recruit and retain employees to best serve the public. The Pandemic Response Committee. I heard this, my team and I heard this throughout the bargaining, how important… And we met time and time, hour after hour on this to deal with particular safety and health issues that the members of DC 37 were concerned about.
So we'll be having a joint committee, a standalone joint committee established to discuss issues related to pandemic response to ensure the city and workers are ready in the event of another pandemic. The city is also committing to maintain an adequate stockpile of P.P.E., personal protective equipment, which includes hand sanitizer, gloves, and face masks.
To be clear, this agreement will provide the economic framework for the city's labor negotiations for this round of bargaining. This is our first deal. We still have a long way to go, a lot of work to go ahead of us, with negotiating the rest of the city's contracts, but we will have taken the first big step today. I look forward to negotiating contracts with the rest of the city workforce. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: We’ll take a few questions.
Question: If you could talk a little bit about the evolution of your thinking on remote work. You before, I think, had talked about it in the sense that you wanted the city's workforce in Manhattan stimulating the economy. So how has your thinking changed on this?
Mayor Adams: No, it's not my evolution. People keep defining it as my evolution and it's just not. My personal beliefs cannot get in the way of running the city of this level of complexity. I clearly stated that we must have equity. There are jobs in this union and in this city that cannot work remotely: our police officers, our nurses, our firefighters, our transit operators.
So as we make this shift into the post pandemic reality, we must do it in a thoughtful way in partnership with the union. A knee-jerk reaction of just stating that everything is remote work overnight will disrupt our city and disrupt our economy. There have been those who have been calling for it and not realizing that we were in deep conversations with the union, in saying, how do we do this in a thoughtful way? That is what we must do. Because I'm a seven day a week in the office person, that's not the reality of the universe we're living in right now, but we have to be thoughtful.
We saw the numbers. Remote work citywide, it could be a $12 billion hit to our tax base. These are real numbers and it's imperative that we do it right. That is what the head of this union, Henry and I, have been very clear that let's be thoughtful. Let's bring everyone in the room together and make sure we make the right decisions for this city.
Question: Mr. Mayor, can you talk about the concessions you won from the union? Are there any healthcare concessions coming? What exactly did you extract for the taxpayers?
Mayor Adams: Well, the union members are the taxpayers. This is the uniqueness of what I believe, and unions in general, but specifically this union, they are directly in line. What I was extremely impressed with is how much Henry was very focused on we got to navigate this city out of this crisis. We are still at the table looking at the healthcare issues that we are facing. I'm joined at the hip with this union on reining in healthcare costs. Every time they negotiate a good contract, they have to deal with these high healthcare costs. We are sitting down, we're looking at where to get healthcare savings, and we're committed to that and we're looking forward to that.
We didn't go into this contract negotiation of saying what can we take from you? That was not our atmosphere and that I was not our thought. Our thought was how do we work together? And this union was very clear. We know what you are facing, Eric. We know what the city is facing. How do we make sure that we get a win-win here? That's what we were able to accomplish.
Question: This tentative agreement covers one fourth of the municipal workforce, but you indicated there's more negotiations to come. Can you tell me more about pattern bargaining? If you had stocked away 1.25 percent raises across the board and this sets the pattern for 3 percent raises, how's the budgeting done for the rest of that?
Commissioner Campion: So I'll defer to the budget director on the budgeting, but let me just take the first set of questions. So we consider this the economic framework under which we will be bargaining. I'm in bargaining right now with many unions. They're in many different phases, early days, one session, two sessions. Some groups have been meeting with the U.F.T. for several months. Impossible to say when you know what the next agreement will be. We'll continue working on that. To the extent that these wage increases, the value, the net cost of these wage increases will be, that will be the economic framework under which we'll be going forward with all of the unions going forward.
Jacques Jiha, Budget Director, Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget: Yeah. As you know, we included in the budget about 1.25 percent. So that additional expense that we have, we've been planning for this all along, through the measures we have taken in the past year in terms of all the savings measures we have taken just to deal in anticipation of this year. So we were well prepared for this settlement.
Question: Let me ask, Mr. Garrido, additionally, to talk about the diversity and titles that DC 37 encompasses, even on the steps here, several different professions.
Garrido: Yeah, this is one of our biggest strengths and also our biggest challenge. We represent over a thousand titles making people making as low as $25,000 a year and people making as high as $200,000 plus a year. So the idea of a percentage increase is always a challenge. The diversity, people who can work remotely, people who can't, and I have to say that none of this could have happened without the trust and the partnership we have — I have personally — with this mayor. I want to thank him for it.
Something was said earlier, for instance, about what are the concessions for the unions? I think that's the wrong approach. The approach that you have to take from workers to give him something back is an erroneous approach. Rather, what we've done is create a partnership where we talk about the challenges confronting the city and the workers themselves.
So we are still committed to saving hundreds of millions of dollars in healthcare not necessarily by charging the workers more, but by being smarter in the way we procure services that we have a relationship with hospitals and providers, the way we provide prescription medication. Healthcare, as the mayor has said in his whole life, has been a challenge of my life as well, has been a big challenge and been a major topic of our discussions. How we approach it is not from the perspective of concessions, but a perspective of partnership.
I think you alluded to our challenge on our diversity, and I think this is the challenge with pattern bargaining. Because what 3 percent means to a person with $200,000, means a lot more financially than somebody who's making $25,000. That was what was especially about this deal, that this deal both raises the wages from the bottom tier of the workers in a way that's been unprecedented by not only raising the minimum wage, but giving them the access and the benefit for the lowest paid workers. Addresses the middle group by creating an equity fund that allows for recruitment and retention, hard-to-recruit titles that are being competitive in the market right now. Nurses, healthcare and other titles that we represent that the private sector's trying to poach from city government. Also addresses some of the flexibility of the higher tier workers, high pay workers who are demanding things like remote work, childcare as a big issue. Now if you're a first responder and you have to go and respond to a crisis, and we certainly have a lot more of them right now, mental health is being a big uproar, and you don't have a place where you can leave your child in a safe manner. What does that do to you? You have the challenge of answering the call from the city or answering the call from A.C.S. who may put you in challenge if you leave your child unprotected. This agreement does that.
So what's special about this agreement is not just the economics of the wages, but the fact that with this partnership we approach all of those big challenges, lower wages, higher wages, flexible workforce, childcare and other pieces, health and safety, which has been a big issue for us. We saw so many DC 37 workers die in the middle of the pandemic because they didn't have access to critical personal protective equipment. This agreement does all of those things. So I'm very proud of what we've done today.
Question: Mr. Mayor, so going back to the remote work aspect. You said it's actually a negative hit to the city's coffers, but this includes a program that would work through that a little bit. What happens to the workers that can't work remote? What do they get out of this, and how will you guys section out who's working remote and not?
Mayor Adams: That is why it is so important. What I think is going to get lost in this conversation is the word partnership. When I look at Shaun Francois, who represents the food service workers and the school crossing guards, being on the front line with him as he was handing out P.P.E. to his members, those members cannot do that remotely. There are members of the union who can. And by putting it together, this panel, we can sit down and have a healthy conversation on how do we make this evolution and what work looks like. And that question is not going to be answered today. It's going to be answered by deliberation, proper communication so that we can make sure that we do it in the right way. As I keep emphasizing, there were a lot of calls to tell us just to do a knee-jerk reaction. And you can't do that when you run a city this complex. Some of that money that is not in central Manhattan is now going to smaller corridors throughout the city. So we need to factor that in. We need to factor in what do we do with those workers who, as you stated, must come in. And that is the thoughtfulness that we must approach this too, because this is a major shift in how this city is going to operate.
Question: Would you be in favor of additional compensation for those workers that have to go on in-person and work every day?
Mayor Adams: I'm going to be in favor of whatever the committee comes out with. The committee will sit down, they will have a communication. They will weigh the pros and cons. The beauty of this is that the committee is going to be speaking on behalf of those who could do remote work and those who can't. So we are going to have a balanced approach to this and the thoughtfulness of the committee, I'm going to sit down and look at their recommendations and make sure that it assists with what we're trying to do in the city… Yep, yep, yep. Please.
Garrido: Let me just add to that, because I think this is important. To look at it just from the perspective of those who can and cannot remote work I think is a little shortsighted. What we saw is in this process when people were going through the pandemic is that we needed a different approach. So the approach, for instance, on the transit check enhancement program for those who have to come in, it's a benefit for those who have to come in. But it also staggers shifts. Are people coming in all at once? We talked about a four hour, a four-day week at 10 hours. Does that make sense? Where does it make sense? Those 12-hour shifts make sense in order to reduce overtime and flexibility work. So it's not just can you remote work, can you not? But can we be flexible enough to reflect the challenges of the workplace today?
And we thought that it would be limiting ourselves by just doing a yes or no. But rather we are looking at the entire population. We have a complex workforce, complex agencies, and we have to deliver to the public, to the taxpayers. There are a lot of agencies that had frontline that can do it, where public goes in and faces the agencies. But there's a lot of processes that could be done online that you could do online necessarily. You don't need an office space for somebody to apply, for instance, for food stamps online. And you can do that online anymore. Can you look at the workforce and make sure that those processes fit the work rather than just say remote work or not?
Question: Hi Mr. Mayor. On this same topic, can you say who's going to be on this committee? What parties are going to be a part of the discussions?
Mayor Adams: I'm sorry, you said?
Question: Who will be on the flexible work committee. Which parties will be a part of these discussions talking about what this will look like?
Mayor Adams: I don't know why I'm not able to hear you.
Question: Who will be on the committee?
Mayor Adams: It's going to be… why don’t you do it?
Commissioner Campion: Yeah. So the members of the committee have not been established. It's clear that we've all agreed that it's going to have an equal number of union representatives and an equal number of city representatives on the committee.
Garrido: I volunteer. (Laughter.)
Commissioner Campion: I think I'm with you. I think I'm right there.
Question: (Inaudible) and say people from different titles, people who might have more flexibility to work remotely as well as those that's not a possibility for.
Commissioner Campion: So each of the different parties are going to make their own determinations on who's going to be the members of the committee.
Mayor Adams: And first of all, these are transformative times and I'm excited about this. I keep saying to my first deputy mayor, when we walk through the Museum of the City of New York and they reflect on this administration, we are making decisions right now that's going to impact what the city's going to look like in the future. And so I'm excited about all of these things. I'm excited about the challenges of remote work or not. I'm excited about the challenges of dealing with a large number of asylum seekers. I'm excited about making our city safe and our subway safe. This is why I became the mayor. I did not become the mayor to climb a hill. I became the mayor to climb a mountain. And these are mountains that we must climb. And so I don't go into them saying woe is me. I go into them saying why not me? Why not my administration? Why not the leadership of this union?
What we do is going to impact the City of New York, it’s going to impact the country. So we're going to solve the problems that the country must solve and address. Every mayor I speak with tells me they have this problem. Every mayor. I sat down with international leaders the other day, they have this problem. So we are not running away from it, we're running towards it, because that's what leadership is about.
Question: On remote work, Mayor Adams… We don't work remotely (inaudible.)
Mayor Adams: Well, a whole lot of your colleagues do.
Question: Experts have told me that we don't really know what the post-pandemic workplace is really going to look like. Does the contract offer flexibility that, let's say, two years from now people are back in their offices in Midtown. Does the contract offer flexibility that at that time we're like, all right, it's clear, people want to come back to the offices and we're going to pull back that option now?
Mayor Adams: Well first of all, I think working in the office saves marriages, but that's up to me to believe. But it's the term that we use often in this administration, pivot and shift. Let's not become so rigid that when the opportunities come about that we have to pivot and shift we're afraid to do so. No, we will pivot and shift. If the climate changes we'll pivot and shift. Whatever we face, we are going to look at what's in front of us and pivot and shift. And we are willing to do that. And that's what the committee must sit down and come up with.
Question: I have another question for the budget director. So what you said to Emily and about the budget, can you explain that again? You said that you had put aside for 1.5, but now there's 3 to 3.4, 3.2, whatever it is, sorry will be the norm going forward. So how does that compute with the city not having enough money for other things in the budget, migrant crisis, et cetera? And where did you stash all this money?
Jiha: We didn't stash that money. We were preparing for that money. We're preparing for that deal. We knew that deal was coming and we've been negotiating with the labor unions for the past year. So we knew that was coming. And you guys have been asking the same question over and over, why do you have only 1.25 when you know it's going to be more. So we knew, so we were preparing for this.
Question: So where is the money coming from? I mean, where is it….
Jiha: We are going to be looking for savings to our city agencies like we always do. And we have a plan to address this.
Question: So there's additional savings in terms of what kind of measures?
Jiha: Well, we are going to take some measures to basically find ways to fund the deal. Okay?
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