UNION, CITY BENEFITS FLAP
The city’s Office of Labor Relations plans to directly purchase prescription benefits for members of a law enforcement union because the union has failed to provide it with required financial documents.
In testy back-and-forth with the Law Enforcement Employees Benefit Association, Labor Relations Commissioner Robert Linn made the city’s unusual move known in a Dec. 20 letter obtained by The Daily News.
Typically, the city releases cash to the union, which, in turn, purchases the benefits.
But the city has held money intended for benefit association members’ prescription benefits in limbo since August, when it put the union on notice that payments would not be made until it submits 2016 financial statements — known as Directive 12 reports — intended to ensure unions properly spend members’ cash appropriately.
The union stopped covering prescription benefits, claiming it no longer has the cash to do so.
“This office has received numerous inquiries from LEEBA members regarding your inexplicable decision to disclaim coverage for the members you represent with no advance notice,” Linn wrote to union honcho Kenneth Wynder. “The failure and/or refusal to file Directive 12 reports is a continuing breach of the welfare and annuity fund agreements between LEEBA and the City.”
“To use LEEBA members’ benefits as a pawn to cover up the union’s malfeasance is inexcusable,” he adds.
Wynder conceded the union is 22 months late in filing its forms, but claimed the city doesn’t put other unions’ money in escrow to make them pick up their filing pace.
“The reason why [Linn] is doing this is because he’s mad at LEEBA,” he said. “We’re taking all our groups to arbitration. We don’t play nice. He can’t hurt me, so now he’s going after my members.”