07/20/2007

TABLE TALK
PEF's PS&T contract team continues to meet with a team of negotiators from the Executive Branch headed by representatives of the Governor's Office of Employee Relations (GOER).

State negotiators gave a presentation on the costs of select PEF proposals.  This exercise is a traditional part of each negotiation. It serves very useful purposes. The costing out puts proposals into a perspective and context which they otherwise do not have. The exercise demonstrates whether the parties actually have the same understanding of the proposals. And any errors in the costing out which could affect a party's opinion of any particular proposal become obvious.  Lastly, it fosters further dialogue of the issues. 

The Union presented a Wall Street Journal report on the efficacy of employer sponsored educational support programs. According to the WSJ 

"Among employees hired the year after the (tuition reimbursement) program started, only about 33% of participants had left the employer within five years, compared with about 60% of employees hired the same year who didn't use the tuition program".

The researchers further concluded that "tuition assistance appears to select better-quality employees who stay on the job longer" 

Little wonder why in 2006, 85% of 1000 large employers in our country offered some form of educational assistance.

On this issue the State has a peculiar history of marching to a different drummer. It has historically stopped its educational support for its professionals (including hard to recruit and retain professions like RNs) when the collective bargaining term ended. And, despite agreeing in past negotiations to fully fund the contractual educational programs for all years covered by the successor contract they have refused to agree to employee reimbursement for tuition costs which occurred prior to the new contract being settled.

Why hasn't the State continued educational offerings during negotiations or at a minimum agreed that employee costs during the hiatus would be reimbursed when the contract was settled?  When asked this question one high level manager who has experience with several administrations thoughtfully opined "tradition". 

Governor Spitzer has broken with tradition on several fronts. PEF negotiators continue to petition his negotiators to do the same on this issue.