New York, NY – Peter Meringolo is chair of the New York State Public Employee Conference [NYSPEC]. Formed in 1977 with thirteen member unions, the NYSPEC has since grown significantly. Today, the organization consists of more than eighty member unions and groups representing more than one million active and retired public employees. LaborPress checked in with Meringolo to talk about the NYSPEC’s most recent legislative agenda, what’s most important to members, and recent talks with Governor Kathy Hochul.
LP: What is most important to the members?
PM: There are three Priorities of NYSPEC for the 2022 Legislative session:
1. Legislation providing protection for public employees from short and long-term physical and/or mental effects from the COVID-19 Coronavirus and its variants, including presumptive disability for COVID-related illnesses/diseases must be enacted.
2. Tier/Pension Equity. There are several proposals that would provide some type of tier/pension equity for many of our members. For example, all public employees should be eligible for essential benefits that exist for certain members, such as Line of Duty Disability and the “death gamble.” Furthermore, any caps or limitations on earning of service credit affecting any public employee should be eliminated. NYSPEC will review all proposals for tier/pension equity and support appropriate measures. Equalize contribution rates and remove any dollar for dollar or Social Security offset penalty as it applies to any pension tier. In addition, in particular, Tier Six has to be fixed. At the NYSPEC breakfast, almost every key legislator that spoke delivered the message that Tier Six has to be reformed.
3. Opposition to Single Payer Health Plan. NYSPEC is opposed to any diminishment of health insurance benefits for retirees.
LP: What is your organization’s approach to lobbying?
PM: Informing and convincing key legislators of the important issues facing labor and get their input and support on introducing legislation to correct the issues. We also need to meet and speak with the younger and new members of the legislature to explain to them the need to support legislation that would correct our issues. Too often, we find that there may be legislators that support a bill that NYSPEC opposes and they do not even know the main reasons for our opposition, or for that matter, why they signed on to a bill their colleague asked them to sign on to. A prime example of this is the Single Payer Health Care legislation (establishes NY Health plan) introduced by Assemblyman Richard Gottfried A6058 and Senator Gustavo Rivera S5474. Members signed on to this legislation for different reasons, but may not have known our reasons to oppose.
Another approach PEC uses is sending the opposition or support memo or a letter to the legislators that are on the committee that will determine the outcome of the legislation. Last year, we defeated the Single Payer Legislation while it was in the Health Committee, so it never made it to the floor for a vote.
We also appeal to our legislators to carefully consider the impact of all legislative proposals on our members who continue to show their commitment to the people of this State.
It is important to note that any issue/legislation we support or oppose must be unanimously approved by the membership.
LP: Any other issues?
PM: Simply put, in addition to the three main issues we are focused on this session, the NYSPEC as an umbrella organization, have been and are fighting the erosion of public employee benefits on many fronts. We commit to redoubling our endeavors to ensure that positive legislation beneficial to all public employees is enacted.
LP: Are there any takeaways from your exchange with the Governor?
PM: The biggest takeaway is we have a Governor who took time out of her hectic schedule to address the membership. This shows her concern for labor and her desire to work with us. First time in my 22 years I was able to introduce the governor [of New York] to the membership. That was huge. The other big takeaway is every key legislator also came to address the membership and continue to support the NYSPEC.
