Artvoice: What touched off the picket last week in front of Buffalo Fiscal Stability Authority Executive Director Dorothy Johnson’s house in Allentown?

Phil Rumore: The control board, we believe, has exceeded its authority and is being vindictive. The control board was put in place here to establish a sound fiscal basis for the City of Buffalo.

The thing that has particularly angered the unions now is how they’ve treated the food service workers. Here you have workers that were, the whole cost of the contract would have been $10,000 to the Board of Education, for these summer workers. And they would have gotten a 25 cents an hour raise—they’re making eight dollars and some odd cents an hour now. The control board turned it down and said they would not pass it unless they made concessions. These are people who have no healthcare, no retirement benefits and are the poorest of the poor—and they can’t even get any retroactive pay, even if they did settle.

It is well within a $600 million budget for the Board of Education to expend $10,000. We think they’re being punitive, vindictive. Some of the statements that have been made by the executive director about “a lovely workforce” have been incendiary. What we’ve said is, “Enough is enough.” We think that the control board is out of control.

AV: The control board argues that if they raise pay for one union, they’ll violate the wage freeze and have to open up all union contracts.

PR: I didn’t believe in the domino theory for the Vietnam War, and I don’t believe that if one person walks across the line that everybody’s going to follow. And who’s going to sue the control board? The control board still has the power to make individual decisions.

The wage freeze not only impacts on the wages people are currently receiving, but for people who are retiring it impacts on them for the rest of their lives, because their final average salary is determined by that.

After what they did to the food service workers, we said, “Look, if they’re going to do that to the food service workers, what are they going to do to the rest of us?” We had to bring it home to them that we were angry.

We’re going to be picketing most of the control board members. And it’s not going to be just one time at each member’s home or business, it’s going to be multiple times. And there are going to be more and more people. We’re also looking at an advertising campaign. What we want to do is to bring to the public’s attention that what they did to the food service workers is a clear indication of what these people, some of whom are making millions of dollars, will do to the poorest of the poor. Is this what you think should be happening here?

AV: Teachers, firefighters and police are far better compensated than food service workers. Don’t you think that using their situation as your rallying point will only underline the public’s perception that your constituents are better off than the average Buffalonian already?

PR: There are other workers who are affected by this who aren’t just the food service workers. You have teacher aides, who make hardly any money. You have crossing guards, bus aides, you have all sorts of other people…

But it does impact teachers too. It takes us 21 years to reach our maximum salary.

You also have the police, who at great risk to their lives went from two people in a car to one—for a raise that they did not get. The firefighters have been without a contract for five years. And anyone who thinks the police and firefighters are making more money than they deserve, I would ask them to be a policeman or a firefighter or a teacher and walk a mile in our shoes and then say they’re getting paid too much. They’re not getting paid enough.

Do they make more money than the average person in Buffalo? Maybe, but so do doctors, so do lawyers. I don’t hear anyone complaining about what the doctors and the lawyers make. When you get into an accident, you don’t go to the doctor and say, Well, I’m really outraged that you’re making $400,000, $500,000 a year. There’s a double standard.

AV: There is also a persistent belief that municipal unions have a stranglehold on city, county and state finances. People look at teacher salaries, healthcare and retirement benefits and say, “I don’t get that.” How do you win sympathy from people who are both jealous of what you have and convinced that what you have is more than government can afford to pay?

PR:, Well first I would say that the only reason that the people who aren’t unionized are getting what they’re getting is that the unions are getting what they’re getting. The only reason that the workers at Wegmans are treated so well is because Wegmans takes a look over its shoulders at what the unionized people are getting. Without unions setting the pace—for healthcare in particular—everybody else would be really down the tubes. Many companies try to match the unions so they can keep the unions out. The whole standard of living in this country would go down if it weren’t for unions.

Here in Buffalo, the unions did not make the decision to put the rapid rail transit down the middle of Main Street. We did not make the decision to put the stadium in Orchard Park. We did not make the decision to put UB out there in the suburbs. When economical cars like Volkswagens were selling so well, it was the leaders of the automobile industry who said, “No, the public wants bigger cars…”

The workers don’t make those decisions. We didn’t make any of those decisions, yet they’re asking us to pay for them. You think that city government is going to say, “Yeah, we really screwed up and that’s the reason we’re in this mess”?

Never. Blame it on the Taylor Law. Blame it on the workers. Don’t think for one second they’re going to accept responsibility for anything that’s gone wrong. But they’ll take credit for anything that goes good, and they’re not going to say thank you to the workers.

AV: Talk about your relationship with Superintendent James Williams, which made plenty of headlines last school year.

PR: Obviously it started off on a real bad foot. First thing we had him do was come in here and threaten to kick my ass. Called me a liar, called me a snake. At the same time we were trying to work with him. And I would point out that we have not responded in kind.

Our issues with Dr. Williams are not so much what he’s trying to do. We’ve been trying to get an alternative school for five years. We’ve been trying to do away with social promotion for 15 years. BTF has always supported a summer school program; we think it should be made mandatory by the state, as a matter of fact.

It’s not a question of what, it’s a question of how. If you’re going to be successful, you need to build a team that feels valued. Superintendent Williams has not demonstrated that ability to lead by bringing people together as a team. It more of “My way or the highway, this is the way it’s going to be done, if you don’t do it my way you’re going to be in trouble.”

Every time there’s a problem, he blames the employees. It’s the teachers, it’s the administrators, it’s somebody else, it’s who was here before me, it’s the Taylor Law. It’s because we don’t have a single carrier.

It’s easy to put the blame, but your job as a CEO is to bring people together, not to lob hand grenades. If you’re going to be successful, people have to feel valued. They don’t like to have cheap shots taken at them. They need to feel a part of the process. That has not happened. I hope it can. I really hope that the superintendent can become less confrontational. But I don’t see that happening yet.

AV: The city’s police are seeking a ruling that would make it legal for them to strike, arguing that the wage freeze violates their existing contract. Has there been talk of a strike among teachers?

PR: I have to be careful what I say here. In response to members who are really upset, from all of the unions met here at BTF about three or four weeks ago, and that’s one of the subjects that was discussed—a city-wide strike.

Under the law we can’t threaten that. The only thing I can say is that, in response to our members, it was discussed.

We have a dual allegiance: We have an allegiance to our kids and we have an allegiance to our teachers. It’s a balancing act. When we went on strike it wasn’t because we wanted to go on strike—and I’ve been president since 1981 and there hasn’t been a strike since then—it’s because there was no alternative.

AV: Williams has a history of holding firm with unions. Teachers in Dayton went on strike when Dr. Williams was superintendent of schools there. Does that give you pause?

PR: The union there is stronger there now than it ever was; it got to be strong there because he caused a strike. A strike isn’t a divisive thing; what it does, it pulls people together. It doesn’t divide an organization, it makes it stronger.

I don’t think that strike had to take place. If he’s coming here with that attitude…and that’s what’s reflective: “I don’t care what your contract says, we’re just going to do it and you can grieve it.” Like with the single carrier: “We’ll just do it.” At what cost? At what cost to the morale?

There a lot of anger out there, because we feel like we’re being blamed for problems we didn’t cause. Whether people believe it or not, it’s the unions working with the Western New York delegation that has a lot to do with how much money comes into this city, and last year we had one of the largest increases in state aid ever. The district is not financially strapped. How they are spending their money is a different issue. They’ve padded administrative positions. They’re talking about adding more. The city has money.

AV: But we are told that the city and the school district both will face future deficits if the unions don’t make contractual concessions.

PR: Municipalities and governmental agencies can project expenses but they cannot project increases in state aid. The board of education got a $25 million or $30 million increase in state aid this year. Under the law, they can project future expenses but they can’t project increases in state aid—that’s why these deficits always look so damning. Of course it’s going to look bad then. But is the district going to get less state aid next year? No.

The districts love this, because they can say, “We’re going to have a zillion-dollar deficit next year.” That’s their PR game. It is largely a PR game, and we’re not winning that PR game. I freely admit that.

AV: Besides picketing and similar PR efforts, what else are the unions doing to unfreeze wages for their workers?

PR: We think that the control board is not just assuming fiscal responsibility—they’re going beyond their powers, and everybody is afraid to test them.We are testing them in court—BTF and the other city unions. We believe that the wage freeze is illegal and a violation of the US Constitution. There’s a section of the Constitution called the contract clause, which basically says, “Thou shalt not mess with someone’s contract until you’ve exhausted everything else.” We believe there is good case law which says that there were other remedies available to the state outside of the wage freeze, and we’ll have that decision in September or October.

AV: How are contract negotiations going right now?

PR: As it is now, for the step forward they took, they’ve taken 18 steps backward. Now they’re asking us to pay for our healthcare—not all of it, but a portion, and I think it’s important to understand how that comes about. We don’t pay for our healthcare now, but what we have done in the past is, let’s say they were going to give us a three percent raise. We say, “How much is it going to cost us if we don’t have to pay for healthcare?”—and we subtracted that amount from the raise. The free healthcare hasn’t come free; we paid for it by taking less in our salaries. And actually that benefits the district, believe it or not, because they don’t have to pay FICA, which they would have had to pay if it were a raise.

The negotiations now I don’t think are going well at all. We’ve requested information from them three or four weeks ago and we haven’t yet received a response. There are a couple of forms they have to fill out for the state which give the real numbers in their budget, where their money is and how they spent it. For some reason we haven’t gotten that information yet.

They have taken the position that the control board has said that there can’t be retroactive raises. Does anyone expect me to go before 3,400 members and say, “Have I got a deal for you: You’re going to get a raise, but it’s not retroactive, and furthermore you’re going to have to give up more than the raises cost? You’re getting a raise, but you’re paying for it.”

One of their proposals is to add a half an hour to the day and also to add two days to the year. That in effect is about an eight percent increase in work time. They’re offering about a two percent raise. The whole concept is not only having to pay for your raise but to put more into the pot.

AV: What is BTF’s position on charter schools?

PR: Gary Crosby, the district’s chief financial officer, tried to settle the debate as to whether charter schools are costing the district money—because everybody says, you know, we’re taking this many students out of the schools, so your expenses are going down because you don’t have to educate them, so you’re not losing any money.

What Crosby did is asked if we were to return all these students to BPS, how much would it cost us? Let’s say we’re sending $60 million to the charter schools. If all those students were returned to us, the cost to us would be something like $25 million. That means that we are sending millions more to charter schools than we would expend if they stayed here. The number turns out to be close to $35 million that we are sending to charter schools that we wouldn’t have spent if they stayed here. That mean there’s $35 million out there that we could be spending on our kids.

The charter schools have a point too; they say they’re not getting the money they should get. They’re probably right—but don’t take it out of our hide. What should have happened is that there should have been a separate source of funding for charter schools. It’s like saying, “Your schools aren’t performing enough, so we’re going to take away $35 million that you could use to address your problems, and expect you to perform better anyway.”

Also, I’m concerned by some of the demographics. Charter schools don’t have the same percentage of special education students that we do—severe special needs students. The law precludes them from discriminating, but if you don’t have the programs, the students aren’t going to those schools. And at some of the charter schools, if you look at the wealth of the students, a couple of them are way out of proportion. If you look at their minority representation, a couple of them are well out of proportion. What happens when you’re in trouble at the charter schools? You get expelled and you’re sent back to the public schools.

Charter schools are public schools, too, and I have real concerns about public funding for programs that show such demographic disparities, even if I don’t believe those discrepancies are intentional.