Triborough - why so difficult to understand?

[Darth Stateworker]

A repost from the CapCon blogs:

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Triborough being repealed would not return the right to strike to government employees in NY. The no strikes clause is a part of the original Taylor law, and not a part of the later Triborough Amendment.

The Triborough Amendment is the codification of the circa 1970s Triborough decision, in which GOER found that as the Taylor law prohibits strikes, unionized workers had no way to fight back when unilateral changes to negotiated working conditions were changed during periods in between contracts. To balance the power between labor and management, the decision stated that government employers could not unilaterally change negotiated working conditions during these intra-contract periods. This is known as the Triborough Doctrine, and this case law governed how government employers could deal with their employees until the Triborough Amendment was passed a few years later in the legislature and signed into law.

If the Triborough Amendment was repealed, without the legislature also repealing the no strikes clause of the Taylor law, unilateral changes during intra-contract periods would revert to being governed under the Triborough Doctrine, and the unions would not automatically get back the right to strike, because that is in the original circa 1960s Taylor law.
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For months, we've seen numerous union members on CapCon incorrectly state that a repeal of the Triborough Amendment will simply give us the power to strike by default. This is NOT the case. The next time you see someone state that, feel free to direct them to this post.

[NYS Techie]

Well, what I've always argued is that the minute Triborough is repealed, every union worth its salt will immediately sue to regain the right to strike. It will be presented to the court as a matter of basic fairness; that the employer simply cannot be allowed to wield the sort of power the repeal of Triborough would grant them, as it would cripple collective bargaining.

I think we would have an excellent chance to regain the right to strike. It's far from a definite thing, of course. In my opinion, though, it's likely.

If we DIDN'T regain the right to strike, virtually everyone would be so pissed off they'd all start "working to rule" and the government would fall apart. Also, all the smart people would leave for better jobs elsewhere. This would ultimately result in a completely ineffectual government, something I'm sure our politicians do not want. So I don't think Triborough is going to be repealed. It's the sort of thing that politicians promise to crazy people, and later shrug and say "it wasn't politically viable."

[Darth Stateworker]

The problem with that theory is this: the decision on that has already been made. The Triborough decision is existing case law. Re-arguing it would be pointless, because the court would find that the decision in 5 PERB 3037 already reflects the no strikes clause of Taylor is legal, provided that negotiated working conditions are honored during intra-contract periods.

However, when one looks at the period in time from the passing of Taylor (and the no-strikes clause contained within it) on through the passing of the Triborough Amendment, one finds a repeated history of wildcat strikes in contradiction to the no-strikes clause of Taylor. The entire reason why the Triborough doctrine was codified into the Triborough Amendment was because unions would still strike under the doctrine due to the fact that the doctrine wasn't all that strong - IE: the loss of steps was legal.

So from my perspective, while the loss of the Amendment wouldn't be the end of unions as we know it in New York, I think based on history it would mean the loss of the labor peace that the Amendment has brought about. Unions would be far more apt to strike regardless of the no-strikes clause of Taylor, because the doctrine would still allow them to be fucked over in certain "non-negotiated" areas like steps.

Why do I think this would result in a loss of labor peace? Let's put it this way: Sure, many state workers are about as lazy as a cut dog when it comes to standing up for themselves under the Triborough Amendment. But that very first time steps go away, many of them will be so worked up that a strike would be more than a feasible outcome. Take NYSCOPBA for example - they went TEN YEARS without a contract. If they didn't get steps for that same timeframe, the entry level guys would have been all but poverty stricken by the end of that term. I think something like that just might motivate people to say "Fuck you, fuck the Taylor law, we're striking because you're fucking us over royally and we have no other recourse!"

Basically, the asshats that want to repeal the Triborough Amendment are just looking for trouble. They don't understand what the Triborough Amendment has actually bought for them - long term labor peace. They've forgotten the lessons of the past where the no-strikes clause of Taylor alone was not sufficient to really guarantee unions would not strike - especially if someone tried fucking them up the ass.