Cuomo Gains an Ally for a Looming Fight With the Public-Employee Unions

by Charles V. Bagli

Business and real estate executives intend to raise $10 million in the coming weeks in support of Governor-elect Andrew M. Cuomo’s looming showdown with government employees’ unions over wages and pensions.

Gary LaBarbera, has called for “a fiscally sane economy.”

And the business leaders, organizing as the Committee to Save New York, have found a surprising ally: one of the most powerful union officials in the state.

The official, Gary LaBarbera, is the president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, a 100,000-member federation of electricians, iron workers and operating engineers who work on large building sites around the region.

Their trades have suffered 20 percent unemployment in the economic downturn, and the union argues that healthier state finances and lower taxes will spur development and construction work.

And while, on average, the construction workers earn more than their union brethren in the public sector, they have the rankling perception that government unions have not shared in their recent suffering.

“We’re advocating for a fiscally sane economy in New York,” Mr. LaBarbera said Thursday. “This is not about bashing public-sector unions. But without a fiscally sound environment, we will not be able to attract new businesses to the city; we’ll continue to lose business.”

He conceded that “at times there will be competing interests between public- and private-sector unions.” But he added that he had become involved in the committee, in part, to serve as a counterweight to those who would “vilify working people.”

His participation was heatedly discussed during a recent meeting in Puerto Rico of the Public Employees Conference, a coalition of government employee unions in the state. And labor leaders say the top union official in the state, Denis M. Hughes, the president of the New York State A.F.L.-C.I.O., is concerned about what could turn out to be a debilitating schism in the most unionized state in the country.

Joshua B. Freeman, a labor historian at the City University of New York and the author of “Working-Class New York,” said he was not surprised that there might be “an open break” within the labor movement.

“The construction trades have been hard hit by the economy,” Professor Freeman said, “and are hard pressed to provide leadership for a labor movement that is increasingly dominated by public-sector unions.”

Though there has long been friction between private- and public-sector unions, the construction trades have had reason to feel aggrieved with other unions as well. Last year, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union successfully defeated the $310 million Kingsbridge Armory project in the Bronx, which would have meant hundreds of jobs for construction workers, when the developer failed to agree to certain wage demands for employees who would work at the resulting retail mall.

But unions representing public workers have come under increasing pressure around the country. The Republican governor-elect in Wisconsin, for instance, has suggested that public employees should perhaps be stripped of collective-bargaining rights.

Still, Mr. Freeman said he would be “amazed” to see any unions join the business coalition if Mr. Cuomo turned his fiscal campaign into an open attack on unions.

Officially, Mr. Cuomo has no connection to the committee, but his ties are evident, and he has been fully apprised of the group’s progress, executives said.

The committee’s work will be run by Bill Cunningham, a managing director of DKC, a public relations firm started by Dan Klores, a close friend of Mr. Cuomo’s. John Marino, a former state Democratic Party chairman who is close to Mr. Cuomo, also works at DKC and has been active in the effort, committee members said.

The addition of Mr. LaBarbera — whom Mr. Cuomo named to his transition committee on transportation and infrastructure — may provide the Committee to Save New York with some insulation from criticism that the elite is looking to solve the fiscal problems of the state on the backs of working people.

Kathryn S. Wylde, the president of the business association Partnership for New York City, has been a key player in the formation of the committee. She said it was not trying to turn government workers into “villains.”

“This is just a situation where we have not been realistic over the past decade about what New York could afford to spend and still remain a competitive and attractive place to live and do business,” Ms. Wylde said.

Mr. Cuomo has made it clear that he plans to hold the line on property taxes, restructure Medicaid spending and take on the unions in a bid to resolve the state’s $9 billion budget deficit.

And he has publicly asked business leaders to back him up.

One influential leader, Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, said, “I believe the business community needs to stand up and support a fiscally responsible budget.”

The committee, which includes the Real Estate Board and the Business Council of New York, has been asking executives and companies to pledge money, to finance a campaign of advertising and advocacy to counter the kind of advertising campaign that unions have used effectively to blunt previous cost-cutting attempts by governors.

One union, the Public Employees Federation, is already distributing stickers opposing layoffs and urging, “Keep Vital Services.” These are aimed at Gov. David A. Paterson, who has been threatening cuts in his final weeks in office.

Regardless of the involvement of the construction unions, Ed Ott, the former executive director of the New York City Central Labor Council, said the group’s demand for government employees to sacrifice was “too much of a one-way street.”

“It’s all about what should working people give up,” said Mr. Ott, now a lecturer on labor matters for CUNY.

“Let’s put the stock transfer tax on the table,” he added, referring to proposals to revive a state tax on stock sales, which Wall Street vehemently opposes.

Rob Speyer, co-chief executive of Tishman Speyer Properties, is expected to be named a co-chairman of the new committee, along with Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of Citigroup, and H. Carl McCall, a banking veteran and a former state comptroller.

The committee is soliciting pledges of financing. Tishman Speyer has said it will donate $1 million.

In recent years, efforts to curb state spending have been blunted by advertising campaigns by unions, notably 1199/S.E.I.U., the health care union.

Mr. Cuomo is intent on overhauling the Medicaid program, where state spending has tripled over the past 10 years while enrollment has more than doubled. Instead of slugging it out with 1199, however, Mr. Cuomo has quietly entered talks with George Gresham, president of the union. Mr. Gresham had early and loudly endorsed Mr. Cuomo’s bid for governor, when many other unions sat out the race.