The Cities Get Tough

There is no joy these days at the Washington headquarters of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represents some 750,000 various government workers throughout the nation. Wails Jerry Wurf, the union's president: "Every day I come to work and there's a stack of clips on my desk from around the country. Most of it's bad news. The courts are dumping on us, and the politicians think we're great whipping posts. You might say we're the object of some hostility."

Faced with rising budget deficits, many states and cities are, indeed, getting unusually tough with their employees. What is more, officials are enjoying wide public support as they take stern measures to hold the line on wages, cut back on overtime, lay off workers, demand greater productivity and fire public servants who walk off their jobs despite the existence of no-strike laws.

John Bailey, an AFSCME official in Oregon, says he and his aides are finecombing government budgets throughout the state "to determine whether or not they really have the money. If we find it, we're going to be very hard-nosed in our bargaining. If it's not there, who are we trying to kid? You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip." Nonetheless, Wurf and his union are trying to battle back with a $1 million advertising campaign, the theme of which is that public employees are not really looting government treasuries. Says Wurf: "All those classy pensions people think we've got--half of them are meaningless because there's no money to pay for them."

The situation is not really that simple. Pension funds are indeed running short in many cities, but the contractual commitment to pay the pensions remains. High pensions and other fringe benefits have, in part, forced New York City into its continual flirtation with municipal bankruptcy. The city has long had a cozy relationship with its police, firemen's and sanitationmen's unions. But last week even New York's militant unions faced up to reality: 67 of them, representing 161,000 of the city's 247,000 employees, accepted a two-year, "no cost" contract that provides only for modest cost-of-living salary adjustments (at most, $543 a year). More pointedly, the contract allows such raises only if they can be offset by increases in productivity or reductions in fringe benefits. As a result of the agreement, Treasury Secretary William Simon announced that New York would immediately get a $500 million installment on the $2.3 billion in loans promised by the Federal Government. The loan enabled the city to survive yet another deadline in meeting financial obligations or going into bankruptcy.

New Yorkers are far from alone in demonstrating hostility toward public employees. Some examples:

P: Detroit last week notified 972 policemen that they would be laid off for economic reasons. The startled cops retaliated with a wave of "blue flu," calling in sick. Detroit Mayor Coleman Young said officers who cannot document their illnesses will lose pay.

P: A superior court judge in San Francisco found four leaders of city craft unions guilty of contempt of court for ignoring an injunction not to strike last spring (TIME, April 26). The city's board of supervisors voted to confirm the $5.5 million salary cuts that had set off the 38-day strike. San Francisco residents last month voted a freeze on police and firemen's wages and reduced the starting pay of newly hired officers.

P: New Orleans placed a hold on ballooning overtime pay to its municipal employees. Such pay had risen from $5 million in 1972 to $12 million last year. Policemen, for example, had averaged $4,000 per year in overtime pay. Only under highly extraordinary circumstances will overtime now be allowed.

P: After a three-day walkout by 45,000 state employees was settled with the help of a mediator, Massachusetts secured a contract provision that will allow it to set productivity and performance standards for all state employees. The standards, to be established by a Governor's task force, are expected to be stern. The Bay State's action reflects a trend: according to the National Civil Service League, 187 of 338 large governmental units surveyed had made reforms in their civil service systems between 1971 and 1974, designed mostly to increase productivity.

P: In two cases last week, the U.S. Supreme Court in effect confirmed that under certain circumstances school boards can fire teachers who go on strike if antistrike laws are on the books in their states. At issue was the dismissal of teachers in Hortonville, Wis., and Dearborn Heights, Mich. It was a blow to the increasingly influential education associations (see EDUCATION).

P: Following a Supreme Court decision that cities can require their employees to live within city boundaries, a number of towns, large and small, are moving to enforce residency requirements. Among them are Atlanta, Philadelphia, Detroit, New Orleans, Boston and Chicago, where Mayor Richard Daley insists: "If Chicago is good enough to work for, it is good enough to live in."

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