Melbourne Ostriman, I was an assistant counsel to the governor from 1962 to
65. I was an assistant, I was special counsel to the governor from employee
relations from probably 65 to 72. In that context I represented the state in
the bargaining, in the probe proceedings that set up the bargaining units. I did
the first several rounds of negotiations with CSEA on behalf of the state. In
1972 I became director of employee relations of the state. I was the second
director following Abe Levine and retired one day after I bested my
pension in 1975. I wonder if you can tell me when you first remember hearing
about an organization called CSEA. Oh it was around certainly in we may not
hear Steve's questions so you could sort of incorporate his question into your
answer so it was around say you know I think I first heard
sure fair enough I can handle it. Ed does the editing.
When I was an assistant counsel in 1962 it was CSEA was around but that was
long before collective bargaining was anybody that thought of and although you
knew about CSEA it really wasn't a it wasn't terribly a factor. I did a as an
assistant counsel one of the areas of responsibility I had was labor and one of
the things I worked on was an amendment to the Condon Wadlenn Act which was the
only public sector law that there was which was a law that banned strikes but
that was a New York City phenomenon. It really wasn't an issue that particularly
affected Albany. As I remember CSEA you would hear about CSEA because every
couple of years the state was in a had a pattern then I guess of giving increases
to its employees every two or three years and CSEA would come essentially
hat in hand to the director of the budget what can you do for us this year and
the director of the budget basically because the state cared about its
workforce and there was an interest in maintaining a relatively competitive
workforce in terms of salaries with the private sector would on occasion
dainn to give an increase to CSEA it was a very paternalistic process back then
though far different from what followed after the Taylor Law was an act.
What do you remember of the dynamics of the relationship between CSEA and
Domenna Rockefeller? I think there it was an odd relationship the relationship
between CSEA and Rockefeller. There was some question as to where CSEA's head
was at did CSEA want to be a union did it not want to be a union was it happy
with the status quo although it was it was a it was a someone a subservient
relationship it was the only game in town and there was this ambivalence
between least we perceived there was an ambivalence as to where CSEA wanted
to go with this certainly the unions in New York City were clamoring for
collective bargaining there were some in CSEA certainly back then who thought
that was a good idea there were others who basically said don't mess with
something that's working now we're doing fine now significant numbers of state
employees belong to CSEA certainly the the insurance and the benefits were
substantial and good and there were those who basically said there's nothing
very much to be gained from from participating in bargaining which was somehow
something nobody had ever done before in or in and nobody exactly knew what
it meant I don't remember which strike it was one of the things that that one
of the things that I did as I said before was working on the Condon Wadland and
Condon Wadland I was the assignment I was given was to make Condon Wadland
effective because it had been ignored in a series of strikes time and time again
in the city and one of the things that I did was to to drafted an amendment which
would let a citizen sue if in fact government did not move to enforce the the
penalties of Condon Wadland and the first strike that occurred after that which
I think was a strike by 13 tugboat ferry captains down in the city the state
landed with its full majesty on the poor ferry captains and enforce the Condon
Wadland act against them but the next strike I believe was a strike of social
workers in the city and in fact I had worked out a pretty good mechanism
because people started to move to enforce the law against this was now several
thousand social workers but all of a sudden the legislature woke up and they
said gee if we amended the law to make it effective we could amend the law to
make it ineffective so the legislature passed the law that basically said this
the Condon Wadland doesn't apply to this strike and indeed every strike there
after the legislature passed the law saying open by the way Condon Wadland
does not apply to them and all during this period of time there is increasing
pressure from the more traditional unions in New York City Mayor Wadland
issues an executive order providing for collective bargaining in the city
president Kennedy issues an executive order which looks like it's
it's authorizing collective bargaining on the federal level it was really more
formed than substance but it happened and it's the pressures grew at some
point and one of them one of the it was wonderful to work for Nelson
Rockefeller but one of the things that that he believed in was if he was going
to do something he was going to do it right and he decided at some point we
weren't going to fiddle around with collective bargaining if we were going to
do it we would find out what would be necessary to make it work right and he
appointed what became the Taylor Committee headed by George Taylor of
Pennsylvania with probably the most distinguished people that he had that
that you had in the country people from Harvard and Yale and and basically the
the most significant academics that you had to basically sit down and in three or
four months I was saw Corbin who had been counseled the governor and I were
counseled of the Taylor Committee and in about three months we put together what
became the Taylor report and basically the framework for what became the
Taylor law a couple of years later one of the things that Rockefeller tended to
do was to bring the best of all people best people he could get best people he
could find together and see if they could reason together to come up with a
product and in the case of the Taylor law it basically worked we came up with a
law that basically hasn't been changed very much over the course of the next
last 40-50 years what what was CSEA's role in getting the Taylor law enacted
and how significant was that?
Probably I think CSEA was going through at this point it's period of
ambivalence at this stage and really although we talked we talked to CSEA
because part of the problem was the people who were on the Taylor Committee the
academics knew collective bargaining in the private sector but they didn't know a
heck of a lot about about public sector collective bargaining about the
public sector generally and we did some time interviewing I think Ted
Wenzel and some people from CSEA but CSEA really I don't think was a
substantial factor back back at that point in time that obviously changed when
the law was was an act it but in the Taylor committee I don't remember the
CSEA being a major factor at that point at that time was there
collective bargaining for other public employees in other cities city was no
none of the states the city was was flirting with it although the city because
the city had thousands upon thousands of bargaining units it was a very
different kind of bargaining than we were contemplating here which was a
much more on a much broader basis you would have small bargaining units in the
city which in fact were in the beginnings of collective bargaining on the
federal level you could bargain but you could bargain about the color of the
paint on the walls you couldn't bargain about salaries you couldn't bargain
about health insurance you couldn't bargain about anything that you really wanted
to bargain about and the other states were far behind us at this point in
terms of there were there were starings in some of the states but not you know
this is one where New York was far ahead of everybody else I think when the
Taylor was enacted I assume that there was a lot of opposition from organized
labor because of those strike provisions there was it was very
and prevalent because they were being given the opportunity to formally
collective bargain yes but there was the the no strike provisions but the
no strike provisions had been with us for 20 years before that then they went
back to governor dewey's time it was a mantra that you had to say that you
oppose the the right to strike but I'm not sure that you know it certainly it
seems to me on balance the fact that you would be given the right to to bargain
for formally bargain and represent and collect dues from thousands upon
thousands of employees far outweigh the fact that you that you might have to
give up the right to strike and frankly many of the more militant unions would
strike anyway I mean didn't make a heck of a lot of difference what I mean what
do you remember about that time in terms of CSEA becoming the representative
but the state workers did the association have a leg up because they had a
long history and already had some presence well when we had when we had there
were discussions which I wasn't directly privy to between the governor and
CSEA at the time the law was enacted that if the law was to be enacted we would
seek as large bargaining units as we could that served the state's interest
because it didn't want to go the route we knew we did not want to do what New
York City was doing we knew that having thousands of bargaining units was
going to drive as crazy and would would the state had a history of a of a 38
step salary schedule where everybody was basically ranked and treated the
same way we knew we didn't want to deviate from that we knew we didn't want to
have separate benefits because New York City is so diverse New State is so
diverse if you started to go down that road there'd be no stopping as to how
small the bargaining units would be we also had the advantage of CSEA which was
a large statewide organization that already represented most of state
employees so our interest in having the fewest number of bargaining units
coincided with CSEA's interest in continuing to represent all state
employees and so when the law became enacted the discussions we had were
basically we would recognize a separate bargaining unit for all state
employees now we carved out the state police because police are different we
carved out the university because the state university is different but with
respect to the what we call the general unit that was going to have 200,000
state employees in one bargaining unit and that in that respect we were
relied with CSEA because CSEA that serve CSEA's interest just as much but
they were I believe representation challenges to see it there were I believe
50 different petitions before the public employment relations board by
different unions seeking different structures there were unions that in the
private sector that struck that that sought bargaining units by
twice by state department there was some that started that by occupational
title what therapy aids in the department of mental hygiene it was a bargaining
and for them attorneys were a bargaining was sought to be a bargaining and nurses
were set to be a bargaining unit New York City they were there were
geographically based of bargaining units again in total it was about 50 how did
that get sorted out?
Purve held hearings over a period of about eight months each of the unions was
given an opportunity to present its case CSEA was given an opportunity
presenting its case we were we the state were given an opportunity to
present a case nobody had ever done a bargaining unit like this the National
Labor Relations Act followed a pattern of based on what the employees wanted
would be the basis for determining a bargaining unit and that led to very small
bargaining units we were trying to do something different and so Purve before
before Jerry left was who was the hearing officer we went eight months worth
the hearing and I remember taking the train from New York City where I was
living at the time on a regular basis and basically reading textbooks on the
way up because we didn't know what the hell we were doing but and make it
basically making it up as we went along what was the concern about the
legitimacy of Purve I believe that there were some challenges as to some
court challenges as to whether Purve would have the authority to do this the
unions again were ambivalent about Purve Purve was was put deliberately put in
the Department of Civil Service it was staffed by people who came out of the
Department of Civil Service or the Labor Department it didn't have all the
trappings of neutrality and so there was an ambivalence about that on the
other hand it was it was the name of the game you had to go through them to get
yourself a bargaining unit if you didn't have Purve what were you gonna have
the court certainly weren't going to be positioned to do anything like this and
I think one of the real challenges that Purve had I think one that it met
fairly well under Bob Helsby was establishing some credibility with the
unions and I think it ultimately it ultimately did so one of the things that
it did was at the conclusion of the bargaining process when it basically
rejected the position of the state in CSEA and came up with five bargaining units
and basically Jerry Lefkowitz who was the hearing officer took the position
that one bargaining unit was just too much to swallow you had to have a blue
collar unit a clerical unit a word a metal hygiene unit a corrections unit
that somehow one unit was too much to swallow and I remember how furious
Al Marshall specifically who was Secretary of the Governor back then was I
think Jerry Lefkowitz that year was the only state employee who did not get a
raise and Al specifically said he was not going to get a raise and I don't
know how they did it exactly but Jerry I did not think I'd raise in the end it
made sense and ultimately when you had the elections and CSEA one four out of
five units who cared I mean it was the same thing as a as a as a
general unit one of the things we had to do in the first round of bargaining
however the first sub several rounds was establishing some identity for each
of the bargaining units so that you didn't deviate too far from the norm but
each bargaining unit would have its own special benefit characteristics that
somehow made it stand out from its peers
the I mean was that a was that a difficult time when you're trying to manage
labor relations on the state side oh surrenders basically have like a whole
you know whole set of uncharted territory that you're trying to a set well
there were there were back into that period of time the attendance rules which
supposed to was supposed to provide uniformity for state employment
generally I think one of the things that we discovered was that whatever we
thought in the in the governor's office as being uniformity simply was a
fiction each agency each and each office within each agency went its own way
and did its own thing and had its own benefits and there was this category of
administrative leave that covered all sorts of things and people got fully
fully paid time off to do union business people got all sorts of odds and
ends peculiarities that nobody knew existed and on balance one of the
wonderful things that the tale or did and negotiations with CSEA did was it
really benefited the state because it gave us some kind of a handle to
mechanically impose uniformity so that there was in fact there was a book you
looked at a collective bargaining contract that said these were the benefits
and if we learned at some point that there were a deviation from that we had a
mechanism to crack down on an agency that was deviating from from what we
thought was the collective bargaining contracts requirements so if I recall
correctly from what I've heard from others and read there after the
telelow was enacted it was basically kind of a baseline negotiation that took
place to establish a first contract but then there was some challenges
whether CSEA was going to be the bargaining unit that took a little bit of
time to sort out what do you remember about those first couple of rounds of
negotiations did anybody tell you about coalition negotiations they were
wonderful while the proceeding was pending before the public employment
relations board some genius decided at some point that we needed to have
interim negotiations before there was a bargaining unit and so the state
conducted two simultaneous rounds of negotiations one with CSEA in the
general unit and one with a coalition of AFSCME unions separately wholly
separate and distinct one from the other and one of the things that we had to
be concerned about was that we had to keep the two bargaining the two bargaining
sessions going at essentially the same rate of speed because I remember
particularly one AFSCME negotiation in a hotel out in Motel out in Western
Ediny where if we made an offer there was somebody standing outside the door to
take the offer and read it on television that somehow we got a got a leg up on
CSEA because we got an offer before they got an offer so the the timing of this
process so that we kept the two unions so the neither that they were
basically competing for state employees in the election and they were trying to
use this interim negotiations process as a way of establishing that they were
tougher and better than anybody else in the negotiations process and it was
horrendous I mean the idea that you thought that you could somehow negotiate with
with two separate representatives at the same time for the same bunch of people
was lunatic I remember at some point we finished we had negotiations with
CSEA on a Friday and we figure finished negotiations CSEA in the state agreed
on negotiations but we didn't have a negotiating session with AFSCME until
Monday morning and the issue is how did we keep it away from AFSCME that there
was that there was a deal so that we could basically reach agreement at the
same point in time in both of them and so Abe Levine who was who was the
director of employer relations at that time met with the AFSCME people at the
Capitol on Saturday and Sunday and all of a sudden he decided he couldn't go to
the bargaining session on Monday Mel would you go to the bargaining session on
Monday and cover for me and basically Mark time and I walk into this
negotiating session and there have to be 70 or 80 people sitting there on
representing the unions and instead of the Julie Topel who was the union lawyer
who had been representing them is Jerry Worf a Jerry Worf is the national
president of AFSCME and he basically says starts off the session by saying we
hear you've cut a deal with CSEA and I said gee I didn't know that I know they're
meeting at the Capitol now but I don't know that they have it deal and I basically
kept that tap dance on for probably two hours and then somebody at that point
breaks it brings in a copy of the early edition of the Nicarbacca news which
was then being published still being published and it says state settles with
CSEA and my credibility went to zero I mean not that I was doing a tap dance to
begin with but ultimately it wound up you know it's sort of deteriorated from
then and then basically what Worf said but Worf was smart he said basically all
right you screwed me because you settled with CSEA first now you got to give me
something that CSEA didn't have and so we had to concoct some trivial benefit
but that he could trump it is something he basically CSEA settled too soon and
he by holding out he got this additional benefit which was really not it was
not terribly significant was this for a separate group of employees this was
for the exact same hundred and forty thousand people in the general unit so
which which was going to be the legitimate representative that was what was
going to be it was this was this was an interim arrangement until we till
until we have the election the idea was basically that for that year we ruled
whichever whichever union was established with no this was this was going to be
the contract that's why it had to be the same thing for both unions and this
was for that year which was sixty eight I think it was basically this was
going to be the contract for sixty eight and then in sixty nine one or whenever
the next whenever the elections were held and then on and we would we would
bargain separately but this was going to be an interim contract so state
employees didn't which whichever ended up being the bargaining unit would have
the would have the same that was the starting points negotiations set of
parameters okay very interesting and then when we did the real negotiations if
you will after CSEA was was certified we then decided that we weren't going to
negotiate separately in five units we would take out the significant economic
benefit salary health insurance pensions which would then be bargain and deal
with those things on a coalition basis of all five unions and then we would have
separate units separate bargaining sessions on the units things applicable to
the administrative services unit the security services unit and the like and
those were I guess I did the the colloquial issue bargaining and I had
system directors at that point who did the the separate bargaining units the
CSEA had professional staff and legal representation in the negotiations but
they would also bring to the table a large number of rank and file members
what was that process like and how did you contain or establish some of the
parameters for who was going to come to the table I remember one session when
there were eighty people representing the union and there were getting control of
that process was was was very difficult I remember one of the things one of the
most serious mistakes I made because I got beaten up about it there were these
eighty people sitting around and I at some point accused whoever was
representing CSEA of making speeches to the peanut gallery are our members
members of the peanut gallery why do you demean our members and and ultimately
I think just to the CSEA professional staff the number of employees that you
were dealing with on the bargaining team became as much of a problem as it was
the state I mean you couldn't satisfy eighty people they they didn't it was it
was if you will a peanut gallery and and they didn't have any ownership interest
because there were too many of them and I think both CSEA and we agreed that
the number had to be reduced now you since you were dealing with four CSEA units
in the general unit you had an opportunity for for bringing a lot of people to
the bargaining table but they didn't have to all come at the same time and I think
you know this was something where the CSEA folk were learning just as we were
learning I mean this was a shared process you talked a little bit before about
Al Marshall from the governor's office as to him being like a chief of staff
there how much how much leeway did you have in doing these negotiations and
how many parameters were set kind of before you would go in the
the dynamic well there was something called the governor's negotiating committee
which consisted of Erse Poston who was the commissioner of civil service Al and
Norm Hurd who was director of the budget and basically they had each one of
their people had Vicky each one of them had their own staff Frank Desharam came
from civil service Harrell Ruben came from the division of the budget and
basically we worked with that with that committee in terms of getting authority
to do things the one who counted more than and the else was not was Norm Hurd
because that was money and Norm would set the parameters for doing that and on
the other hand I don't think there was a particular interest in
disadvantaged CSEA or anybody else at that point there was a concern however
about making our salaries competitive with with with the private sector or
comparable to the private sector and you'd have to go to Norm for that I
remember in the second round of negotiations one of the proposals that CSEA did
was an increase in the state's mileage rate and I remember having to call
John Cargan who was a deputy deputy secretary to the governor deputy budget
director legendary person in the division of the budget and had to call him a
two o'clock in the morning because I wanted to give a quarter of a
percent increase in the mileage rate and a quarter of percent increase in the
mileage rate was gonna cost 18 million dollars and he gave me such a hard time
over a quarter of a cent and ultimately I got it but I mean we were finding out
for the first time what these things cost and and putting everything into
perspective prior to this time though I mean state employees in particular
it wasn't necessarily competitive state employment wasn't necessarily
competitive with the private sector and I think if you go back and look there
was some significant improvements in both salary and benefits for state employees
during that time. The part of the problem was I think is we tended to treat
everybody the same and you would create disparities I think our clerical
workforce was generally paid pretty well compared to the the the private
sector the people in the department of metal hygiene the people who took care of
the mentally ill there was nobody to compare with I mean we was we so this was
this was the the name of the game at that point I think in the professional
ranks there was some substantial shortfalls in what we were paying compared to
what the private sector was paying but it was all over the lot and one of the
things we tried to do was to try to make some sense of what we were doing to see
if we could somehow rationalize the state's pay structure and make us you
know what we certainly didn't want to be first but on the other hand we didn't
want to leg too far behind. Now during your tenure as director of the Governor's
Office of Employee Relations I believe that there was an incident that CSEA
refers to as the Easter Sunday strike and I wonder if you could tell us about
how that came about and what the result of it was. Oh Lord I'd frankly
forgotten completely about it but it does give rise to a to a story. I don't
know what caused the silly strike I mean I don't know what the frustration was
this would have been 73 I guess but all of a sudden I think CSEA had to prove
its manhood for some reason and how we got into the strike I don't exactly
know but they did it at a time when it didn't make a hell of a lot of difference.
I suspect we probably were being difficult in negotiations and they decided at
some point that we're going to make sure of it and I remember from the
Governor's office's point of view is oh my god this thing has happened how do
we make it stop I mean how do we give them the face that they need to to call
it off and how do we get this thing back on track I remember per appointed
mediators and they appointed a fellow whose name at the moment escapes me.
Harold Newman was one of the mediators they appointed but one of the board
members per board members was one of the mediators and we met in the DeWitt
Clinton Hotel and I was there Michael Whiteman who was now my partner who was
then counsel for the governor was there George oh dear like I'm drawing a
real blank and it bothers me was representing Purb and I remember his
principal mediating skill was falling on his knees and weeping saying stop this
strike and and and and we were all pulled how old was Harold Newman was just oh my
god all of them that we worked out some kind of mechanism that somehow we ate
some crow probably and gave CSCA and I think the strike just replaced Saturday
and Sunday and by Monday they came back to work and and the only places that
were terribly affected with it with the the metal hygiene facilities and the
rest of state workers never really participated and I think CSCA had an
interest in the strike not going much beyond Monday morning because they
didn't know whether anybody else would follow them out they got the they got
the word therapy aids to go out at least enough of them to suggest that there
was a real strike but what was going to happen on Monday morning I don't see
a see I wanted to know any more than we wanted to know now at that time the
president of CSCA was was Ted Wenzel what do you remember about his
personality Ted was a Louvre Ted came from a simpler and no
bloodline and I don't think he had any heart particularly for the rough and
tumble of collective bargaining I think he was a good leader I think he was a
good manager but I don't think his heart was deeply into into collective bargaining
there was a real dichotomy between I think if Ted is the president of the
friends of the Bethlehem Public Library not as a as a as a millen labor union
leader I think he did a good job I think he was a responsible I remember when we
were talking about the pension crisis if you will in the Kenzel Commission back
in 74 he took a lead in in understanding that we needed to do something about
the cost of public employee pensions that they had gotten out of control and
bringing his union around so they were willing to cooperate in some kind of
pension reform was he was a statesman in that respect but he was really more
of a state he certainly did not get into the trenches nice guy I mean and
and a good leader do you remember his predecessor feeling John feeling not
really I mean I knew I know the name and I think I'd met him but not really
no before my time tell me about some of the other personalities that you dealt
with that oh Lord saw Ben debt was out of control I mean a wonderful man you
could see him being a wonderful grandfather but he was crazy he rattled
sabres and screamed and yelled and I think he drove CSCA crazy as well as
anybody else as well as everybody else he was a real Milton at a time when
when CSCA didn't know how to deal with Milton see very well Bob God was
there a lot of the people who were still still around us were back there
then Jack Rice obviously was was one of the two or three most significant
people in CSCA I mean even though he was not he was an outside lawyer because
this was a new area for CSCA Jack took a leadership role in dealing with
dealing with the state and indeed most of my contacts were with Jack how did
how did Jack conduct himself representing the organization Jack was was
was that didn't know any more than we would but on the other hand he pretended
he did and did a good job and he did a wonderful job representing the state
I mean did anybody talk to you about that the original management confidential
let's build okay when after we did our first round of bargaining it became clear
that we needed a cadre of people that the state could rely on in collective
bargaining that somehow it was a part of it was it was an outcome of the strike
we needed to have identified a group of people that were ours that somehow would
not be influenced by the union they owed their allegiance to us and we came
up with the rubric of management confidential and we put in my partner John
Hannah who was then counsel to the office employee relations we need to use
governor governor's office employee relations we were the office of employee
relations because that was the name of the game at that point we were the only
ones that were around John drew the statute we got it passed and then the issue
was how many management confidential employees would there be and able able
of mine they started out saying there should be no more than than 70 or 80 and
the rest of this basically said no that was not you needed a much more
substantial group of people you know there might in fact be only 70 or 80
significant decision makers but for this purpose you needed a hell of a lot more
people than that and we went to CSCA and and tried to convince them that that
there should that had to be more had to be some number of people and I remember
spending a weekend at Jack Rice's place on Lake George I think he was
renting a place at Lake George and his family and my family got together and
Jack and I worked out an arrangement that there would be something like 7,000
people who would be designated as managerial confidential back then but Jack
had a political problem he couldn't admit that these people were all being
taken out of CSCA representation he couldn't give up membership and so what what
we agreed on was that there would be a perp proceeding and we would petition
for 7,000 people remember we petitioned for 8,000 on the theory we want to get
7,000 but we petitioned 7,000 and there's a record at perp that perp has
determined that these 7,000 people were going to be management confidential it
never happened it was all a fiction these people would just you know this was a
deal that nobody could admit back then and perp rubber stamped it I think there
was a hearing indeed of some sort but not much of one in which we put in these
names and and somehow CSA did not consent formally but there was an adjudication
by perp they were being cooperative because they understood this had to be
done too tell me about the the dynamic between CSA and AFSCME in those early days
oh god AFSCME had no use for CSA at that point much of the of the private
sessions we had with the AFSCME people at the time how could you do with CSA
that's an insurance organization they have no spine they you know they're not
real union people the not me not a real union was a was a mantra that
that the AFSCME people used all the time the amount of enmity that existed
towards CSA was extraordinary at that point in time I think CSA over the course of
time has proved itself and I think it never was terribly well justified but
certainly it was terribly well believed because again a lot of the AFSCME
people had come out of the private sector a lot of the AFSCME people had grown
up in a time when labor relations in the private sector was a much more
confrontational process than it is now was then even and they were much more
blue collar oriented if you will then the CSA types were and I think CSA over
the course of time proved itself that it was a real union I mean was was it a
difficult dynamic because the CSA was a non-affiliated union so you have these
AFLCIO unions kind of taken shots periodically at trying to decertify what I
think they were they were appalled at the outcome of the election I mean it
really it became very clear that they did not understand the state workforce
because they were so absolutely sure that when the first round of elections
took place the workers would rise up in smite CSA that somehow they would
vote for militancy that they would vote for professionalism for history of
bargaining and they wouldn't deal with this company union and the the results
were so overwhelming that I you know oh my god you know where did we go wrong
and I think it slowed him down for a while I mean I don't remember I don't
remember a lot of rating efforts at that point in time there was some but not
not a lot so once once a CSA was certified pretty much they were established
as the representative the results were overwhelming I mean it was just I
don't think it was it did not suggest to the unions to the to the private
secretary the AFLCIO affiliated unions that there was much of a future in going
up against CSA and elections with state workers you guys there's about 10
minutes left on the state okay just so you know okay depending on how many more
questions you have okay okay let me ask you this because I know a couple of
folks have talked to us about Nelson Rockefeller actually coming into the
negotiating sessions on occasion interacting with some of the state workforce
what do you remember about that I don't remember that particularly I remember
Nelson Rockefeller bringing people to him there would be a couple of sessions
when Ted and some of the CSE members would be asked to come and visit with a
governor but I don't remember Nelson Rockefeller participating in bargaining
indeed one of the one of the wonderful things of working for Nelson Rockefeller
was he basically let you do your own thing and you knew whatever you did he
would support you he might cut your legs off privately but publicly he was
going to support you and I don't ever remember him really interfering in bargaining
indeed the only time I ever remember him doing anything to limit what my
authority was there was an issue this would have been 73 74 about the
election in the metal hygiene unit the word therapy aid unit and the issue was
whether it was going to be done by mail or whether it was going to be done in
person and I know CSEA wanted it to be done in person and I think the this was
you raised the issue of rating before this was an issue where the unions thought
in the the AFL CIO unions thought that this was a place where they might have a
chance and so they were urging a mail ballot with the theory that it would
reach everybody and the more people that you reach the better chances the
unions the traditional unions would have and we took the position that it
ought to be an onsite election the office employee relations my office and I
got a call to come visit the governor at the mansion and the governor said no
you're going to take a position that was going to be a mail ballot and I said
governor why well he'd gotten a phone call from George meanie who was the
president of the AFL CIO the night before who said Nelson we're going to do a
mail ballot and Rockefeller at that point still had aspirations of running for
president and was not about to take on George meanie on this kind of an issue
this was something he could give to me and I said governor you know I understand
where you're coming from but it's wrong and he said now they pay me to be
governor they don't pay you I understood that I had my assignment I went ahead
and we urged a mail ballot and we had a mail ballot and CIO still one it's
interesting because CIO was very well established in the in and around the
capital at that time but in many ways was very non-political
70 after you know working with the Nelson Rockefeller and having the
contract put in place and really establishing them as the representative of
the state employees they didn't take a position in the gubernatorial election
and in fact just had both candidates come and speak to the convention was
that a wise course of action probably back then it was I don't think CSE
knew its own strength back then it didn't have a long history of being
partisan and I think there was a concern if it got to be too political it would
be open itself to reprisals at this point from you know depending on when
Hugh Carrey wins if we'd been too too much pro Nelson Rockefeller you know
would we have to pay for that I think we didn't have the institution of
collective bargaining a collective bargaining representative as firmly
established as we did back then and nobody was terribly secure with it I think
CSE probably made some sense in going slowly in that area what do you
remember about map of Wilson's relationship with the SCA
Malcolm was wonderful a one of the things that that the governor's cabinet if
you will the real immediate cabinet was al marshall was norm heard Louis
left-guets and Malcolm Wilson and Louis was there because he was liberal and
Malcolm was there because he was conservative I think he I mean I have heard
him say he was to the right of a till of a hunt I mean so he said it over
himself but Malcolm was a good soldier and it was the exchange of views of
of all of them that led them that led to I think some fairly good decision-making
processes Malcolm was close with CSEA and Malcolm had been an
assemblyman since the night 1940 I think we're certainly the early 40s and
and knew everybody and I mean if you wanted to know who if you were in the
Cataragas County and you wanted to know who you needed to talk to in Cataragas
County Malcolm would know and Malcolm Malcolm worked with the CSEA folk and
was close to them on the other hand he was one voice out of a bunch of voices
and it was it was he's voice his voice was heard and listen to that was
important but he was only one of a bunch of voices let me ask you one more
question that is why do you think CSEA has been able to survive for 100 years
I mean you're suggesting that CSEA is the same organization that existed for
100 years and CSEA has been and will has as shown an ability to to evolve I
think it was a very different organization when it was founded when it when it
got to be the 30s 40s and 50s it largely became an insurance benefit it became
benefit organization for state workers I don't think it was it certainly wasn't
terribly militant back then but it was the only game in town I think CSEA's
willingness and ability to evolve over time and to assume new roles as
situations changed basically made it survive I mean and grow to where it is
today which is very very different than when I knew it back in the in the early 70s
and you know it's a testament to the people who who belong to CSEA and who
leads CSEA you guys have done a good job
