Mayor of New York v. Council of New York
874 N.E.2d 706, 842 N.Y.S.2d 742, 9 N.Y.3d 23 (2007)
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Rule of Law:
A local legislative body may enact laws that alter the procedural framework for public employee collective bargaining, such as by defining bargaining units, without being preempted by state law, so long as the laws do not dictate the substantive terms of employment. Such procedural changes do not constitute a curtailment of an executive officer's power that would require a mandatory public referendum.
Facts:
- New York City's public employee labor relations are governed by its Collective Bargaining Law (CBL), a local counterpart to the state's Taylor Law.
- A 1972 local law codified a two-tiered bargaining system, where most employees bargained city-wide on issues like overtime, while 'uniformed' services (police, fire, sanitation, correction) could negotiate these matters with their specific unions.
- This system was originally established by a Mayoral executive order in 1967, which was based on a prior agreement between the Mayor and various municipal unions.
- In 2001, the New York City Council passed Local Law Nos. 18 and 19.
- These laws amended the CBL to expand the definition of 'employees in the uniformed... fire... service' to include fire alarm dispatchers and Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs).
- This reclassification exempted dispatchers and EMTs from the city-wide bargaining requirement for issues like overtime and time/leave rules, allowing them to negotiate these terms directly through their own unions.
- The Mayor of New York City vetoed the laws.
- The City Council overrode the Mayor's veto, enacting the laws.
Procedural Posture:
- The Mayor of New York City filed an action in the New York Supreme Court, the trial court of first instance, seeking a declaratory judgment that Local Laws 18 and 19 are invalid.
- The Supreme Court granted summary judgment in favor of the City Council, upholding the laws.
- The Mayor, as appellant, appealed to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, an intermediate appellate court.
- A divided Appellate Division affirmed the trial court's ruling, with the City Council as the appellee.
- The Mayor appealed as of right to the Court of Appeals of New York, the state's highest court.
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Issue:
Do local laws that reclassify certain fire department employees as 'uniformed' for collective bargaining purposes, thereby exempting them from city-wide bargaining on certain issues, violate the state's Taylor Law or unlawfully curtail the Mayor's power without a mandatory referendum?
Opinions:
Majority - Smith, J.
No. The local laws do not violate the Taylor Law and do not curtail the Mayor's power in a way that requires a referendum. The laws are not preempted because they prescribe the procedure by which agreements are reached—defining the bargaining unit—rather than dictating the substantive terms of an agreement, which remains the Mayor's prerogative. Regulating bargaining procedures is a proper subject of local legislation. The Mayor's argument that this usurps his power proves too much, as it would also invalidate the original 1972 law that created the 'uniformed' exception. Furthermore, the laws do not trigger a mandatory referendum because they do not 'curtail' the Mayor's power within the meaning of the Municipal Home Rule Law. A referendum is only required for laws that impair a power integral to the officer's role in the framework of government, such as the power to appoint commissioners or prepare a budget, not for laws that merely regulate the operations of city government as a matter of legislative policymaking.
Dissenting - Read, J.
Yes. The local laws are preempted by the Taylor Law because they improperly intrude upon the Mayor's exclusive authority as the chief executive officer to negotiate with public employee unions. The original two-tiered bargaining structure, including the exemption for uniformed services, was not a legislative creation but the product of a collectively bargained agreement between the Mayor and the unions, which the Council merely ratified in 1972. By unilaterally amending this structure, the Council is not merely setting procedure; it is impermissibly altering the scope of collective bargaining and giving certain unions a substantive advantage they could not achieve at the bargaining table. This action allows employees to 'make an end run around collective bargaining,' and it usurps the Mayor's executive function, which the Taylor Law reserves for the chief executive, not the legislature.
Analysis:
This decision clarifies the division of power between a municipal executive and legislature in the context of public sector labor relations. It affirms the legislature's authority to define the procedural landscape of collective bargaining, so long as it stops short of dictating substantive outcomes. The ruling empowers legislative bodies to create or modify bargaining units, potentially leading to more fragmented negotiations and increasing the political leverage of specific employee groups who can lobby the legislature for preferential bargaining status. It distinguishes between a regulation of government operations (permissible for a legislature) and an alteration of core executive powers (which would require a referendum), setting a precedent for future disputes over the separation of powers in local government.
