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POLICEPAY.NET
NEGOTIATION TRAINING JANUARY 18-19 -
JULY 26-27 - Santa Fe, NM (click here for information)
Salary
increases proposed for police officers, service employees and management are
on today's council agenda. From
The Orange SANTA
ANA– The City Council tonight will consider salary increases for police
officers, service employees and management under proposed two-year extensions
of their contracts. The
proposals come after months of discussions in closed-session City Council
meetings and talks with the three unions. The
changes would extend the unions' contracts through June 30, 2010, and raise
salaries at different intervals during the two years. With
all of the contracts, the a 4 percent raise would
come July 1, 2008, with a 2.5 percent raise scheduled on Jan. 1, 2009.
Salaries would go up 4 percent again on July 1, 2009, and an additional 2.5
percent on Jan. 1, 2010, according to a city staff report. The
city estimates that the first year of the agreement would cost an additional
$184,680. The
changes would also spell increases in health-care costs for union employees. The
council meets at 6:05 p.m. in the Police Community Room, 60 Civic Center
Plaza. In
a closed-session discussion prior to the meeting, the council will consider
whether to offer changes to the city's contract with firefighters. Council can grant raises
to police, firefighters From
the The
Birmingham City Council has the right to grant pay raises for public safety
employees, the Jefferson County Personnel Board ruled Thursday. The
board was asked whether Birmingham Mayor Bernard Kincaid or the City Council
can approve pay raises for police officers and firefighters. Councilman
Joel Montgomery, who sponsored the resolution requesting the pay raises, said
he was pleased by the decision. "We
need to get our police officers paid, we need to be able to recruit more
police officers and we need to be able to retain more police officers," Efforts
to reach Kincaid, who asked the Personnel Board to reject the resolution,
were unsuccessful. The
Personnel Board asked for an attorney general's opinion but, facing a
deadline to make a decision, acted without one, board members said. Ken
Simon, board attorney, said state law gave the council the right to establish
pay raises. "The
mayor is the appointing authority; however, under Section 12 of the Enabling
Act, the City Council, as the governing body, has the authority also to
change the salary schedule," Simon said. The
enabling act passed by the Alabama Legislature established the Personnel
Board of Jefferson County and set regulations under which the civil service
system operates. Simon
said the issue also came up in 1983 when then-Birmingham Mayor Richard
Arrington and the City Council disagreed over a salary schedule. "Judge
Jack Carl concluded the City Council had the ability to change the salary
schedule under Section 12," Simon said. Personnel
Board Director Lorren Oliver made no recommendation
to the three-member board. Roger McCullough, human relations manager for the
board's staff, urged the board to do nothing. Doing
nothing would have been irresponsible, Simon said, "because it would
mean the salary increase would come into effect automatically. If the mayor
wants a chance to challenge this in court and try to stop it from coming into
effect, the first thing the mayor will say is the Personnel Board failed to
do its job." The
City Council voted 7-1 last month to override Kincaid's veto of a 15 percent
raise for police and fire workers. The council then sent the Personnel Board
a resolution Oct. 19 requesting the pay raises. Kincaid
responded with a letter to the board dated Oct. 26 that said the council's
resolution was invalid. The
mayor argued that the council overstepped its authority by asking the
Personnel Board to change police and fire salaries. He contended that only
the mayor can make that request. The
raise would give the city's police and firefighters - whose pay starts lower
than that of counterparts in nearby suburban cities - a gradual increase of 5
percent a year beginning in fiscal 2008. Kincaid called the raise fiscally
unsound and unfair to other employees. Police union holds
protest march to City Hall From
The San Diego Union – Tribune, November 14, 2006 SAN
DIEGO – More than 100 members of San Diego's police union marched to City
Hall Tuesday to protest what they contend is uncompetitive compensation,
which they say is forcing officers to seek employment with other departments. Representatives
with the San Diego Police Officers Association wore T-shirts with “Exodus
Tour” emblazoned on them, and some carried signs that read “Train with the
Best, Leave with the Rest,” “When Seconds Count We are
Minutes Away” and “911 ..... Please Hold.” Bill
Nemec, president of the SDPOA, told the council the
San Diego Police Department is 300 people short of its budgeted staffing
level. “We
are losing our ability to deliver services and the level of safety the city
is accustomed to,” Nemec said. Police
Chief William Lansdowne told a City Council committee last month the
department is down only 196 sworn officers. During
a news conference, Mayor Jerry Sanders called the timing of union protest
“ironic” because it fell on the same day the Securities and Exchange Commission
sanctioned the city for its faulty bond disclosure practices, and during the
release of his five-year financial plan. “In
essence, the labor union you saw protesting today is proposing a continuation
of the same type of destructive behavior that got the city in trouble to
start with,” said the mayor, the former chief of the SDPD. A
one-year contract was imposed on Union
officials have repeatedly argued that low pay and declining benefits are
forcing experience officers to leave the department. “They
are ready to leave,” Nemec told the City Council. “There
are not enough police officers on the street,” he said. “There are not enough
people to keep this community safe.” Unions Allege Pay Raise
Was Bad-faith Bargaining From
The Day, November 20, 2006 If
the unions prevail, they could seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in
compensation from the city. Just
before he left Along
with all city employees, Welch received a 3 percent raise to $78,677 on July
1, which is not contested. The
police, public works and management unions and City Councilor Rob Pero have alleged the June increase was improper. Welch
should have received no raise in 2005-06, they said, because she signed an
agreement in June 2005 stating that union and unaffiliated employees would
receive no wage increase in 2005-06. Welch is an unaffiliated, or nonunion,
employee, and she was the city's representative in negotiating the agreement
with the unions. By
accepting the raise, “she broke an agreement with the people she was sitting
across the table from,” Pero said. The
three unions have alleged that the raise is evidence the city bargained in
bad faith in June 2005, when the city was seeking concessions from the unions
in order to bridge what Brown projected would otherwise be a $2.5 million gap
in the 2005-06 budget. Welch
and Brown said the increase was proper and did not violate the agreement with
the unions. “We
did not violate the bargaining agreement. It was a salary adjustment,” Brown
said. “It was clearly based on the level of the work and the complexity of
the work, which had increased since she was hired.” The
increase does not amount to a raise for the 2005-06 year, Welch said. “I got
a 0 percent raise increase for the 2005-06 fiscal year
just like everyone else.” Every
other unaffiliated employee received a 6 percent raise in January 2005 to
make up for two years without raises, but Welch did not receive the raise
because she was a new employee, hired in October 2004, she said. The city classifies
its employees by salary, and Welch said her salary eventually needed to catch
up with those of other employees or she would, in effect, be demoted. Due
to the way the city's payroll system works, the raise had to come before the
end of the 2005-06 fiscal year in order for Welch to
receive the same 3 percent raise every city employee received on July 1,
Welch said. To
date, none of the three unions has reached an understanding with the city on
the June raise. The
New London Police Union filed a grievance on Oct. 27 alleging that “the City
bargained in bad faith during wage concession negotiations in the spring of
2005.” The
raise given to Welch within the “wage freeze year” is one piece of evidence
of bad-faith bargaining, said Lt. Marshall “Chip” Segar, president of the
union. Another is the recent announcement of a more than $1.2 million surplus
for the 2005-06 fiscal year, reflecting a much less
dire budget situation than the unions were led to believe when they gave up
salary increases and other concessions, Segar said. “Mistakes
were made that give a hint of impropriety,” Segar said. “We're not
finger-pointing. ... It's just an issue of we want them to explain themselves
and tell us how — after all the discussions about wage concessions and the
necessity of such — the city's chief negotiator did not comply with her own
agreement, and how — in this bad fiscal year of bad fiscal years — did the
city manufacture a $1.2 million surplus.” The
public works and management unions both filed municipal prohibited practice
complaints with the state labor board in 2005 alleging bad-faith bargaining, and the public works union also filed a
grievance. Both unions originally filed the complaints over furloughs, but
both said they will use the raise and the surplus as further evidence of
bad-faith bargaining. “We
were looking to be part of the solution to the problem. We got lied to,” said
Thomas Baude, president of the management union. The
public works union wants the 3 percent raise it gave up in 2005-06, former
union president David Kotecki said last week. The
union also wants compensation for furloughed employees who collected
unemployment payments less than their salary and for those who paid their
families' medical bills out of their own pockets during the period when they
had no medical insurance coverage from the city, Kotecki
said. City
Manager Martin H. Berliner, who began work in “I
can't go back and redo things that we've done one, two, three years ago. I
can commit to trying to work with the unions on a number of issues,” he said. Pero failed to convince the City Council Nov. 6 to
change Welch's salary to $74,160, the amount allocated in the 2006-07 budget
adopted by the council in May. Councilors weren't informed that Welch's
salary would be different from that in the budget, Pero
said. The council unanimously voted to prohibit future budget transfers
within a line item in order to increase the salary of a nonunion employee
without the knowledge of the council. State supports city on
police promotions From
the Advocate, November 19, 2006 CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS POLICEPAY provides
complete contract negotiations for your bargaining unit. We will:
Our fee will be a fixed
amount that is agreed to up front. The
fee will include all costs, even travel and hotels. There will be no surprises. We offer options with no up front
payment. You can make equal monthly
payments. If your contract is 36
months, you will make 36 monthly payments. During the term of the
contract, we will:
If we are not able to
reach an agreement with your city, we will provide arbitration services at no
additional cost. We intend to get an
agreement. Our approach to contract
negotiations is different than what you are probably used to. We engage in non-confrontational
negotiations that rely on developing relationships. However, we do not use so called “win-win”
negotiation. It’s a loser for
you. There will be no unfair labor
practice complaints filed by us or lawsuits and grievances. If that is what you are wanting you need to
call the usual knucklehead lawyers that have been screwing up police negotiations
for years. Intimidation and blustering
are not in our arsenal. If you prefer to
negotiate yourself we can provide any of the services listed above, with the
same payment plans, only at lower rate.
If this is the way you want to go, you need to attend one of our
negotiation seminars. The upcoming
seminars are listed on our website. For more information,
give us a call at (405) 234-2235, or contact POLICEPAY.NET Your
Ultimate Solution For Contract Negotiations |
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