De Blasio Taps Linn As City’s Chief Negotiator

Less than 10 hours before he officially becomes the city’s 109th Mayor, Bill de Blasio reached back into the administration of the 105th, Ed Koch, to choose Robert W. Linn as his Labor Relations Commissioner.

Under any circumstances, he told reporters, Mr. Linn would be stepping into “one of the most important jobs in government” despite its lack of a high profile. Its role is accentuated, Mr. de Blasio said, by the “unprecedented challenge” the city is facing: due to a stalemate between Mayor Bloomberg and the municipal unions, every one of them is working under a long-expired contract. Among the biggest and the longest in that regard are the United Federation of Teachers, whose old pact ran out 50 months ago, and the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association and Uniformed Firefighters Association, whose deals are 41 months out of date.