City, union continue to bicker about details of proposed deal

Union officials and the city administration continue to disagree on the conditions surrounding a concession plan recently voted down by a large majority of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees members.

According to a statement from the Executive Board of AFSCME 1043 Public Works, the proposed plan would not have guaranteed jobs for six refuse workers who lost their positions in the city's transition to an automated trash collection system. Mayor Ed FitzGerald stated, however, that the six workers would have been guaranteed positions in the city's water and sewer departments.

"What bothered most members in the union was the fact that the proposal has a clause that said if city revenues drop and layoffs were to happen, he would do it," said Pat Slife, recording secretary for AFSCME Local 1043, saying that the proposal also asked for members to switch to a 90/10 health care plan from their current plan to be paid back in the event of further layoffs. "That's a big hit to take on top of no guarantee for layoffs."

FitzGerald stated that the offer would still be the most generous health package for public works employees in the AFSCME district and that the city will ask the union to make the same health care concessions during negotiations when their contract runs out at the end of the year.

"They had a difficult choice to make and they made it," he said. "I don't blame them for that but if they had made a different choice then they could have saved the jobs."

In its original plan, the city offered to place refuse workers into entry-level jobs without posting them, but was denied by the union. Slife explained that the jobs the city wanted to fill with the six refuse workers were highly coveted senior jobs and that the proposal would have been voted down immediately by union members. He said that instead, the union asked for a modified posting process....