BILL NUMBER: S938
SPONSOR: BRISPORT
 
TITLE OF BILL:
An act to amend the civil service law, in relation to the rights of
public employees and employee organizations to strike; and to repeal
certain provisions of the civil service law and the judiciary law relat-
ing thereto
 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS::
Section one amends section two hundred ten of the civil service law to:
1. Eliminate the prohibition against "causing," "instigating," "encour-
aging," and "condoning" a strike. These specific prohibitions raise free
speech concerns and are unacceptably vague;
2. Clarify that additional discipline against an employee, or removal,
for participating in a prohibited strike shall be according to, and not
exceeding, those provisions already provided for by law.
3. Eliminate the presumption that employees have participated in a
strike if they are absent from their employment on a day on which a
strike has occurred;
4. Clarify that continuing to negotiate with an employee organization
for the purposes of ratifying a collective bargaining agreement, failing
to seek applicable penalties, or reaching a settlement of any kind shall
not be construed as any form of consent to a strike.
5. Reduce the financial penalty for employees who participated in a
strike to an equivalent of pay lost for days not worked;
6. Repeal the requirement that employees accused of participating in a
strike respond to such accusation by means of a sworn affidavit contain-
ing documentary evidence;
7. Shift the burden of proof from the employee to the employer in prov-
ing that an employee participated in a strike;
8. Eliminate the employer's discretion in making an initial determi-
nation as to whether an employee's objection to an accusation of partic-
ipating in a strike is substantiated or denied, and require that an
independent hearing officer make such determination;
9. Repeal the loss of dues deductions as a penalty applying to employee
organizations that have authorized a strike;
10. Repeal the requirement of the Public Employment Relations Board to
initiate proceedings on its own motion against an employee organization
for authorizing a strike;
11. Make the pursuit of applicable penalties optional, as opposed to
mandatory, for a public employer or its officers;
12. Eliminate the obligation for employee organizations to proactively
end a strike by their members;
13. Reduce all penalties that may be levied against an employee organ-
ization for authorizing a strike to a fine of $50 per day;
14. Clarify that penalties for violations of the law prohibiting strikes
are available exclusively through section 210, and additional penalties,
including incarceration, or fines secured through contempt proceedings,
shall not be imposed, nor shall employees be ordered back to work by
court order;
15. Remove the disclosure of employees' names and their degrees of vary-
ing responsibility from public reports required to be made by the
employer in the aftermath of any strike;
16. Make various technical amendments, including relettering paragraphs,
incorporating gender-neutral language, and cleaning up subdivision head-
ings.
Section two repeals section two hundred eleven of the civil service law,
which requires that public employers and their officers immediately seek
an injunction in court against any strike, and to seek to hold an
employee organization or employees in contempt of court for any failure
to comply with such injunction.
Section three repeals subdivision two of section seven hundred fifty one
of the judiciary law, which allows a court to levy various penalties
against an employee organization for authorizing a strike, and specifies
the nature of penalties that can be applied if a union is found in
contempt of court.
Section four is the effective date.
 
JUSTIFICATION:
Public sector employees in New York are prohibited from striking pursu-
ant to section two hundred ten of article fourteen of the civil service
law, colloquially known as the Taylor Law, which has been in place since
the late 1960s.
Yet in addition to this unjust prohibition, the law imposes draconian
and excessive penalties against both public sector employees and public
sector unions for engaging in or supporting any kind of prohibited labor
action. These can include millions of dollars in fines and months of
lost dues for the union, jail time, and disciplinary and financial
penalties for employees. These repressive and unfair penalties are
contrary to the principles of any society that supports the rights of
organized labor and reduce the likelihood that public sector employers
negotiate in a fair and timely manner. They should be reduced accord-
ingly.
 
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY::
2023-24: A9376
 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS::
None.
 
EFFECTIVE DATE::
This act shall take effect immediately.

Statutes affected:
S938: 211 civil service law, 751 judiciary law, 751(2) judiciary law