By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Newly elected Erie County Executive Chris Collins promises a business approach to running government. But Collins now has to test that business model with some pretty tough customers - the labor unions.
Collins promises to be a "chief executive," not a "chief politician." He says he'll run county government with an eye to revenues and expenses. And Collins said he will regard government workers as employees, not special interest groups.
Robert Glaser is the interim chairman for the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority and a fellow businessman. Glaser said the board anticipates that Collins' approach will be a welcome change.
But labor expert Lou Jean Fleron said even good business models do not necessarily apply to good government. Fleron is a director at Cornell Labor Studies in Buffalo who has seen a lot of mistakes made in negotiations. And she said, by announcing what he will be asking the unions to give up, that Collins might have already set up an adversarial approach that could doom negotiations before they even begin.
And there are early signs Collins might have an uphill battle. On its web site, CSEA Local 815 warned its members about Collins' early promises to cut benefits.
Joan Bender is president of the union that represents 4,000 county employees. She said they will reach out to Collins in the coming weeks to hear what he has to say about negotiating new contracts. But she said they do not really need to because of provisions under the Taylor Law that continue terms of the expired contracts.
Labor experts say that is only one of the cold realities Collins will have to fold into his business model for running government.
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