Contract with school safety agents includes gender pay
Sally Goldenberg
New York City's school safety agents, who sued the Bloomberg administration for gender discrimination, will get retroactive pay to make up for the salary difference, in a decision pending court approval.
In a deal announced on Women's Equality Day, more than 5,000 agents will each get a one-time payment of $7,000 if they have worked for at least three years as of Septembr. 1. Those who retired between March 5, 2010, and Aug. 31, 2014, will also receive the money, in a deal announced Tuesday by Mayor Bill de Blasio and union officials. The deal must be approved by a judge next month when the city and the union are due back in court.
In all, the city will pay the workers $38 million, de Blasio said during a press conference announcing the agreement as well as a new, approximately $192.5 million labor contract for the union that represents those workers. The contract, which covers workers retroactively from March 2012 through September 2017, will be offset by an anticipated $77.5 million in health-care savings the union must achieve.
The agents sued the city when Michael Bloomberg was still mayor because the school safety agents received less than their counterparts in other agencies—positions known as special officers. Because 70 percent of the agents are female, the union, Teamsters Local 237, sued on grounds of gender discrimination.
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