Service Workers Agreement
The recent Service Workers Agreement has been much talked about. Media sources include:
KEYT-TV: Service Workers Agreement
NOOZHAWK: City Employees Agreement
The most detailed media coverage was by the DAILY SOUND:
[ Excerpt from: "City, service workers OK two-year deal," By Eric Lindberg, DAILY SOUND, Feb. 4, 2009 ]
After nearly half a year of negotiations, the city of Santa Barbara finalized a deal with service workers yesterday that will provide salary and benefits increases between 5 and 8 percent during the next two years.
Union and city officials both acknowledged that the economic climate mandated concessions on both sides of the bargaining table.
“It’s probably not as rich an agreement that we thought we’d be reaching when we sat down in June, but clearly things had changed with the city’s budget by December,” said George Green, a senior field representative and spokesman for the union.
Kristine Schmidt, the city’s employee relations manager, called the two-year deal the “best agreement that we could have come up with between us.”
Under the terms of the contract, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 620 will receive pay and benefits increases of 3 percent during the first year and 2 percent during the second year.
Additional salary increases up to 3 percent during the second year are possible through a formula based on the Consumer Price Index. Service workers will also receive a paid holiday in recognition of Cesar Chavez.
“That’s huge for us,” Green said. “It’s the only real labor leader holiday around. That is something that we can point to in these difficult economic times, that at least we were able to prevail on that.”
Those covered by the contract include librarians, streets maintenance workers, groundskeepers and planning department employees — essentially all city workers excluding Airport Patrol, Harbor Patrol, water, wastewater, safety and management employees...
“We were able to get people cost-of-living increases and some increases to retiree medical,” Green said. “Hopefully the economy will be better the next time we’re at the table.”
The increase in salaries and benefits will cost the city at least $1.8 million, which would not be fully realized until 2011. Up to an additional $1.2 million could be added through the Consumer Price Index formula during the second year of the contract.
The City Council accepted the deal by a 6-1 margin, with Councilmember Dale Francisco casting the lone vote against the proposition...
“This is not the time to be establishing new holidays for city employees,” Francisco said.
Councilmember Das Williams, however, countered that the agreement represents the results of a long, contracted negotiation involving significant concessions by the union.
“That’s shown in the fact that they were obviously asking for a lot more and they accepted a lot less,” he said, calling Francisco’s statements a “late hit.”
“I feel like it’s a little bit grandstanding and opportunistic,” Williams said.
Francisco responded by announcing he had brought up issues with the deal during closed sessions as negotiations were ongoing.
“At many occasions, I have raised objections to some of the things we have agreed with,” he said. “…I think we will regret them. I said exactly those words.”
City negotiators said despite just finalizing a contract after months of negotiations, they are already returning to the table for further discussions due to the budget crisis.
“We’ve approached SEIU and our other bargaining units about a furlough up to 5 percent next year along with other labor concessions to avoid service cuts and to minimize the need for layoffs,” Schmidt said.
Although those negotiations are ongoing and by no means finalized, a 5 percent furlough would represent 104 unpaid hours, she said, adding that following the example set by the County of Santa Barbara of holding the furlough during the winter holidays is a possibility.
------------------------------
For full text, please go to:
Daily Sound: Service Workers
The most detailed media coverage was by the DAILY SOUND:
[ Excerpt from: "City, service workers OK two-year deal," By Eric Lindberg, DAILY SOUND, Feb. 4, 2009 ]
After nearly half a year of negotiations, the city of Santa Barbara finalized a deal with service workers yesterday that will provide salary and benefits increases between 5 and 8 percent during the next two years.
Union and city officials both acknowledged that the economic climate mandated concessions on both sides of the bargaining table.
“It’s probably not as rich an agreement that we thought we’d be reaching when we sat down in June, but clearly things had changed with the city’s budget by December,” said George Green, a senior field representative and spokesman for the union.
Kristine Schmidt, the city’s employee relations manager, called the two-year deal the “best agreement that we could have come up with between us.”
Under the terms of the contract, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 620 will receive pay and benefits increases of 3 percent during the first year and 2 percent during the second year.
Additional salary increases up to 3 percent during the second year are possible through a formula based on the Consumer Price Index. Service workers will also receive a paid holiday in recognition of Cesar Chavez.
“That’s huge for us,” Green said. “It’s the only real labor leader holiday around. That is something that we can point to in these difficult economic times, that at least we were able to prevail on that.”
Those covered by the contract include librarians, streets maintenance workers, groundskeepers and planning department employees — essentially all city workers excluding Airport Patrol, Harbor Patrol, water, wastewater, safety and management employees...
“We were able to get people cost-of-living increases and some increases to retiree medical,” Green said. “Hopefully the economy will be better the next time we’re at the table.”
The increase in salaries and benefits will cost the city at least $1.8 million, which would not be fully realized until 2011. Up to an additional $1.2 million could be added through the Consumer Price Index formula during the second year of the contract.
The City Council accepted the deal by a 6-1 margin, with Councilmember Dale Francisco casting the lone vote against the proposition...
“This is not the time to be establishing new holidays for city employees,” Francisco said.
Councilmember Das Williams, however, countered that the agreement represents the results of a long, contracted negotiation involving significant concessions by the union.
“That’s shown in the fact that they were obviously asking for a lot more and they accepted a lot less,” he said, calling Francisco’s statements a “late hit.”
“I feel like it’s a little bit grandstanding and opportunistic,” Williams said.
Francisco responded by announcing he had brought up issues with the deal during closed sessions as negotiations were ongoing.
“At many occasions, I have raised objections to some of the things we have agreed with,” he said. “…I think we will regret them. I said exactly those words.”
City negotiators said despite just finalizing a contract after months of negotiations, they are already returning to the table for further discussions due to the budget crisis.
“We’ve approached SEIU and our other bargaining units about a furlough up to 5 percent next year along with other labor concessions to avoid service cuts and to minimize the need for layoffs,” Schmidt said.
Although those negotiations are ongoing and by no means finalized, a 5 percent furlough would represent 104 unpaid hours, she said, adding that following the example set by the County of Santa Barbara of holding the furlough during the winter holidays is a possibility.
------------------------------
For full text, please go to:
Daily Sound: Service Workers
Labels: agreements, city of santa barbara, workers
posted by Malcolm
at
2/05/2009
Share on Facebook
0 Comments :
Post a Comment
Thank you for your comment!
Links to this post
Create a Link