William B. Magnarelli, running for Onondaga County Executive

 

1. A Project labor agreement is a comprehensive pre-hire collective bargaining agreement that establishes standardized conditions and wages for all contractors and subcontractors on a PLA covered project. PLAs offer:

Stable labor costs so you can bid without guessing.
Reliable supply of local skilled workers for the project duration.
Apprenticeship trained and certified workers.
A no-strike, no lockout commitment.
Binding procedures to settle disputes, so no work stoppages.
Management flexibility to meet special project needs.

Do you support Project Labor Agreements? If not, explain why.

ANSWER: Yes, and I have consistently fought on behalf of workers by insisting upon Project Labor Agreements when government funds are involved. In the negotiations over the legislation to provide $225 million in state funding for the renovation of schools in the Syracuse City School District, I insisted that the bill language require a PLA if the project were to be exempt from Wicks. Governor Pataki and the Senate Majority fought to have such labor protections removed from the bill, but I insisted that the language in the bill protect workers by requiring that the only way to exempt a project from the Wicks Law would be to adopt a PLA.

2. Private school vouchers and other schemes like education tax credits for K-12 private school expenses undermine public education by taking scarce public funds away from public schools that are open to the public and shifting them to private schools.
The AFL-CIO strongly supports legislation that would strengthen public education by helping states and local school districts reduce their class sizes and finance school repair, construction, and modernization projects with protection for prevailing community wages. A growing number of public schools all across the country are being forced to set up classrooms in trailers, hallways, and closets in order to accommodate their rapidly rising enrollments. One-third of all public schools also need extensive repair or replacement.

What is your view of proposals to provide for private school vouchers and/or charter schools?

ANSWER: I am opposed to proposals to provide private school vouchers and/or expansion of charter schools. Our public school system is in need of greater investment, and public education is undercut by policies like these. In the Assembly, I have worked to defeat proposals for private school vouchers and charter school expansion, and I have succeeded in bringing home record state school aid increases.

What would you do to improve the state of disrepair many of our public schools are currently experiencing?

ANSWER: As the drafter of legislation to provide for the first phase of the complete renovation of all of the schools in the City of Syracuse, I have worked hard in the New York State Legislature to make sure that the schools in the City of Syracuse are upgraded to provide safe and healthy learning environments for city children. As County Executive, I would meet with the representatives of the 18 school districts in the county to see where I could be of assistance in efforts to improve our schools, and I would advocate for similar state assistance for the school districts in the county. Furthermore, I would ensure that BOCES receives the support it needs to keep its facilities up to date. Looking beyond elementary and secondary school, I would also work to ensure that Onondaga Community College has adequate facilities and technologies to meet the needs of its students.

3. Ninety-four percent of workers say firing an employee for supporting union representation is an “unacceptable action” and 80 percent say they are aware that such actions are against the law. Nevertheless, employers illegally fire union supports in 31 percent of organizing campaigns and many use other tactics to thwart workers’ efforts to form unions.
A recent report by Human Rights Watch shows that existing laws are too lax and unenforced to prevent employer attacks on workers’ rights. For instance, while employers can prevent unions from contacting workers at their work places to discuss the advantages of union membership, they are free to deluge workers with anti-union messages.

Do you believe employers should be held accountable for their anti-union activities?

ANSWER: The United States constitution guarantees certain basic rights, including the freedom to lawfully assemble and to contract with others for goods and services. Included within these freedoms is the right to organize and collectively bargain with employers. I support protection of these freedoms, and I therefore feel very strongly that employers should be held accountable for any anti-union activities. County government should make sure that any corporation or person who willfully violates the fundamental rights of another person, including the right to organize, is held accountable.

If yes, what actions should be taken against companies that violate workers’ rights to organize?

ANSWER: Such employers should be punished according to the penalties provided for under the law. As County Executive, I would work with the District Attorney to ensure that such violations are investigated and prosecuted where applicable.

How could labor laws be improved to guarantee workers’ right to organize?

ANSWER: It is critically important to have an executive that enforces the laws on the books. Amendments may help to clarify the intent of the law, but as I wrote above, the right to organize is guaranteed in the United States Constitution. Therefore, this right should be guaranteed regardless of any laws passed in support of or opposition to that right. The executive at each level of government makes sure that the law is complied with, and as County Executive, I will ensure that the right to organize is protected in Onondaga County.

4. While the economy has been growing, this growth has been accompanied by a sluggish job market that seems to provide too few with a rising standard of living or greater economic security. Economists have attributed this unique predicament to several factors, including corporate downsizing, global competition, the introduction of labor saving technologies, and a pattern of increasingly large rewards to more highly skilled employees. Indeed, a recent study found that most Americans today are worse off than they were before the 1989-1991 recession.
Many northeast communities have lured businesses or encouraged them to stay through tax incentives. However, these incentives have not prevented those companies from downsizing the jobs of those very same taxpayers who offered the tax breaks in the first place.

Should companies be able to accept such tax breaks only to downsize thereafter?

ANSWER: I have been one of the leading legislators working to reform the Empire Zone tax break program, which was originally intended to help rebuild upstate urban areas and was supposed to provide tax incentives in exchange for hiring a specified number of workers. However, there have been several instances highlighted by our newspaper where employers abused this program and did not, in fact, hire new workers. In some cases, employers that committed to maintaining or growing a certain number of jobs actually downsized their workforce, as is described in this question. There may be certain industry-wide or economy-wide factors that may
make it difficult for an employer to meet its job commitments, and in some cases, these tax benefits may help to ensure that employers stay in
business at all. When a company flagrantly violates its agreements and
cannot justify reducing its workforce or not meeting its commitment to
increase jobs, however, government must revoke these benefits.

How would you correct this apparent inequity?

ANSWER: As stated above, when a company flagrantly violates its agreements and cannot justify reducing its workforce or not meeting
its commitment to increase jobs, however, government must revoke these
benefits. Empire State Development has been working under our new
Governor’s direction to hold employers accountable. I have spoken with
Upstate Commissioner Dan Gundersen about ESD’s effort to do so, and
he has initiated an effort that is a good first step to reforming the Empire Zone program. Companies that receive Empire Zone benefits must
justify to ESD why they did not meet the hiring projections they originally committed to, and if there is not a reasonable explanation, these companies will lose their benefits. Ultimately, the solution to reforming this tax break program and other similar programs will be to require
greater transparency and accountability in the process. As County
Executive, I will make sure that county government conducts itself in an o!
pen and ethical fashion, and I will hold local companies accountable to the commitments they make in exchange for tax benefits.

5. An honest day’s work should be rewarded with an honest day’s pay. That’s what a “Living Wage” is all about. Living wage ordinances have been enacted in 80 localities across the nation and have been passed in Rochester, Buffalo and New York City.
A living wage ordinance requires employers to pay wages that are above federal or state minimum wage levels. Only a specific set of workers are covered by living wage ordinances, usually those employed by businesses that have a contract with a city or county government or those who receive economic development subsidies from the locality. The rationale behind the ordinances is that city and county governments should not contract with or subsidize employers who pay poverty-level wages.
The living wage level is usually the wage a full-time worker would need to earn to support a family above the federal poverty line, ranging from 100% to 130% of the poverty measurement. The wage rates specified by living wage ordinances range from a low of $6.25 in Milwaukee to a high of $10.75 in San Jose ( A wage of $8.96 an hour with health benefits is recommended for Syracuse, NY.).
Living wage ordinances provide much needed raises for low-income workers. Wages for the bottom 10% of wage earners fell by 9.3% between 1979 and 1999. The number of jobs where wages were below what a worker would need to support a family of four above the poverty line also grew between 1979 and 1999. In 1999, 26.8% of the workforce earned poverty-level wages, an increase from 23.7% in 1979.

Can you provide a good reason why you would not support legislation that requires a living wage for workers? Please include your position on a living wage for Syracuse-area workers.

ANSWER: I am a proponent of providing a living wage for all workers and have attended rallies and spoken at such rallies in order to encourage passage of legislation for a living wage. I have consistently voted for living wage bills, and I would support expanding the City’s living wage bill to include the County because it makes sense for the City and County to have a uniform policy on living wage. In general, I also support requiring firms who contract for government services to provide a living wage to all of their employees, but there may need to be different requirements in place for temporary, seasonal, or some part-time jobs.

6. “Down-waging” has become a standard practice by highly profitable companies who replace full-time workers with part-timers, temps or sub-contract out for lower wages and poorer benefits. Between 1980 and 1995, 42-million jobs were lost in the United States. Each year, there are 50 percent more people laid off than are victims of crime, which raises the question of which is the greater social ill.
Reduced wages and benefits negatively impacts on families’ ability to afford adequate health care. Forty-three million Americans do not have health insurance and another million lose it each month.

And, while many parents believe college costs will be the biggest expense they face for their children, in fact many will spend more in a year on quality child care than on public college tuition, according to a new Children's Defense Fund (CDF) report.

The AFL-CIO supports guaranteed high-quality child-care, health care, job education and training.

What steps can elected officials take to ensure that these benefits are available to all Americans?

ANSWER: The answer to this question is actually simple: active and innovative leadership will help elected officials to make these vital services available to the public. On job education and training, for example, there are already dozens of organizations in this community looking to develop the workforce and give people the skills they need to succeed in the modern economy. However, a vacuum in leadership has allowed these many well-intentioned organizations to work at odds with each other, or in a way that overlaps some services and ignores certain critical needs. As County Executive, I would bring together the many agencies, both public and private, working on job education and training to make sure that they are communicating, collaborating, and supporting each other’s work. Similarly, I would work with other local governments, businesses, health care organizations, non-profit organizations, and universities to make sure that Onondaga County residents have access to adequate health care and child care. With active and collaborative leadership, we can develop solutions as a community that meet the needs of our families.

7. Those who advocate the privatization of government services seek a significant reduction in the government’s role in society. But, market-oriented policies cannot be relied on, by themselves, to meet our citizens needs.
Studies conducted by Cornell University found that the claims by privatization ideologues, are “quite groundless” and the empirical research supporting such claims are “so flawed as to be useless as a policy guide.”
Instead, privatization of government services has been shown to
•diminish the access to public services
•reduce employee morale, productivity and turnover
•exploit part-time workers through low wages and benefits
•increase discrimination against minorities
•cause the loss of government sovereignty
•weakens constitutional rights (e.g., whistle blowing, ethical conduct)
•reduce quality of services
•increase corruption, bribery and kick-backs
•lose accountability for public values and services.

Do you support privatizing public services? Please explain your answer.

ANSWER: If held to the same standards as existing public employee contracts, private entities often have a hard time competing with the cost of providing public services directly through government employees. In general, I am not supportive of privatizing government work, but I would not rule out privatization altogether because there may be some services for which it makes sense for government to hire through contracts, such as waste management. I only support privatization of services if the employer is held to high standards on labor policies and service quality, and where there is an expectation of public accountability for the performance of that contract. If public funds are spent to provide a service, then such standards should be upheld.

8. As an elected official, how would you ensure that the voice of labor and community-based agencies are recognized on decision-making bodies such as the Industrial Development Authority?

ANSWER: Decision-making bodies, such as IDAs, should not only have individuals with certain technical expertise on them, but also individuals that represent labor and the community at large. We need expertise on our government boards, commissions, task forces, and agencies. However, that expertise can also come from labor and community activists. As County Executive, I will make sure that the proper “mix” is appointed to such bodies, including labor and members of the community at large.

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Greater Syracuse Labor Council Questionnaire