From Capital Tonight, one of NY’s public unions is pissed off to discover that an endorsement doesn’t get you what it used to:
Last year, the Public Employees Federation broke ranks with two of its public sector colleagues – NYSUT and CSEA – to endorse Gov. Andrew Cuomo even as many union members were concerned by his pledge (laid out in the “New New York Agenda,” remember that?) to freeze state worker salaries and push other policies that considered unpalatable by the labor community.
Now that PEF is deadlocked in contract negotiations with the Cuomo administration, its president, Ken Brynien, is experiencing a bit of buyer’s remorse.
….
Brynien said the Cuomo administration has refused to sit down at the negotiating table for four weeks now, adding: “There could be talks today; we’ve told the governor we’re willing to meet with him 24-7 to get things done…they made demands of us that we didn’t like, and we made counter offers. They haven’t come back to us yet.”
Yeah, funny what happens when the money runs out and you discover you’ve got no leverage.
The amusing thing is, Cuomo had been pretty up-front about what he had planned for public unions when he campaigned last year. Other unions took him at his word and did not endorse.
These guys made the move that in other years would have been a sure bet: assuming that a politician lied to get elected.
Maybe they should’ve checked the numbers before they had made that bet.
- Excited
- Angry
- Not as Angry
- Bored
- Indifferent
- Sad
In the words of Otter, from the film “Animal House”, “You effed’ up; you trusted us…”
Which, as you say, what was PEF thinking. I guess they thought that their brown envelope was the archtypal offer Governor Koo-mo couldn’t refuse.
It really cracks me up too, how Walker, Kasich, and even Daniels to an extent are vilified for taking analogous tacks to raining in their budgets, but aside from grinding and gnashing of teeth in the occasional internet story, I’m mostly hearing crickets about Cuomo.
This is a prequel to what will happen in the 2012 election; Cuomo, like Obama, counted on the fact that Democrats had no where else to “go”, electorally.