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Wednesday, June 19, 2013
City doles out pink slips
by Kathleen Haley, published on July 21, 2010 at 6:17 PM
Storyline: Sacramento City Hall / Politics
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The city of Sacramento sent out pink slips to about 90 employees Wednesday because city management and two unions have not yet found common ground in their contract negotiations.
However, Interim Assistant City Manager Patti Bisharat said city officials have not given up on efforts to resolve their differences with the unions.
In June, the city closed a $43 million budget gap for the 2011 fiscal year.
The two unions that have not made concessions are Stationary Engineers Local 39 and Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447. Local 39 represents employees in numerous city departments, including Utilities, Transportation and Community Development.
Bisharat said Tuesday that the city was still actively negotiating with the unions and “still hopeful” for an agreement to avoid layoffs. But the city sent out layoff notices in order “to pull the trigger if we need to,” Bisharat said.
If the negotiations end successfully, then city management will retract the pink slips, she said.
But if talks do not improve soon, the laying off of about 90 employees will go into effect Aug. 6, according to Bisharat.
Joan Bryant, director of public employees for Local 39, said it was “very disturbing” that the city sent out layoff notices Wednesday. The union has faced layoffs of more than 200 workers in the past two years, she said. The union represents about 1,500 workers locally.
“The city has an obligation to cut its spending and stop cutting workers at every turn,” Bryant said, “because pretty soon you’re going to have no one to cut.”
She claimed that the city is laying off workers to put pressure on the union to accept the city’s demands.
Local 39 is continuing to negotiate with the city, she said, but noted that the city’s specific requests are “not something that we will likely jump into.”
The city is asking Local 39 to sign off on a three-year contract that would end in June 2013, according to city spokeswoman Amy Williams. A 4 percent pay cut would go into effect now with the proposed contract, Williams wrote in an e-mail. Starting in June 2012, employees covered under the contract would receive a 5 percent raise.
Among other details, the contract would include a monthly furlough day throughout the three-year period, Wiliams wrote.
When the City Council balanced Sacramento’s budget on June 22, it extended negotiation talks with three unions for 30 days. One of the unions, the Auto, Marine and Specialty Painters Local 1176, made concessions to the city last week, Bisharat said.
The city had hoped to use savings from labor concessions to balance its budget. But when city managers didn’t gain concessions from unions by June 22, the City Council decided to allow an extra month for negotiations.
Since the city didn’t have the savings from concessions in June, the City Council moved $648,000 in other funds to help fill the budget hole.
The layoffs of about 90 employees would mark a second group of layoffs for the city this summer. About 50 employees worked their last day on July 16, Williams said.
Harry Rotz, the business manager for Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 447, could not be reached because he was out of town Wednesday, according to the union’s office.
Photo by Brandon Darnell.
Kathleen Haley is a staff reporter for The Sacramento Press.
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That total, $758,000 but probably closer to $800k with the recent June Primary elections, is "more than the region's two largest law enforcement unions, the firefighters union and the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce – combined", said the Bee.
So the City spent nearly $650K to extend their contracts and not lay off workers, the unions did not budge and now Harry Rotz is not even in town to negotiate?
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/05/18/2757891/plumbers-flex-muscle-in-local.html#ixzz0uOXAHexy
This is 13% lost jobs (assuming non of these guys got other jobs outside the union)... very similar to local unemployment rates.
But these 200 were not City of Sacramento workers. So now the labor mafia... errr union thinks that City of Sacramento should be held responsible to make sure that the Local 39 membership stays at a certian level.
The arrogance of these corrupt union bosses never ceases to amazes me.
Before condemning union members, anti union folks need to do some research into the role unions played in the last two hundred years in this country to lift blue collar workers out of poverty and into the spending middle class. Our whole economy benefitted from those workers who sometimes lost their lives in the struggle to be heard.
But why bother to raise the human condition when you can so easily suck honey from the US taxpayer instead, right?
You should know your union history as well. The union legacy of the last 50 years is one of crappy products that no one wants to buy, unsustainable wages that puts the union member out of work in the end, and a cycle of corruption that leaves the taxpayer holding the bag.
So that leaves the US labor unons to suck dry the only enterprise that can't run away screaming -. local, county and state & federal governments.
Way to go union guys... you took a proud union legacy and swerved it into the ditch!
No, Jimmy it is not past tense. The unions in the private sector have lost so many members that they are very weak as compared to the past. In spite of that, their battle for livable wages went on and still benefits the public in some sectors where their wages enable them to still live a middle class life.
Further, unions are still needed in this country. Check out what happened to the meat packing industry when management "busted" those unions. Wages went down to barely above minimum and only illegal immigrants would work under these filthy working conditions. CEO's and top management wages went up and consumer prices NEVER went down. The miners' and BP woking procedures and conditions killing their workers show that their is still a need for strong unions in this country. Work in both those industries for awhile and you will have a different view.
"The union legacy of the last 50 years is one of crappy products that no one wants to buy," That started with the auto companies and spread to others was not due to unions. It was called "planned obsolescence" to get consumers to buy more products and enrich stockholders and management
Cogmyer--There are unions in the public sector and unions in the private sector. If management in both sectors treated their employees with respect and responded to their needs, there would be no reason for unions. Instead of management and workers being a team in this country working toward a common production goal, it is the arrogance and "class" attitude of management and ownership that creates the need for unions.
The craftsman unions of Europe (and later Japan) founded over 300 years ago fosters working cooperatively and while they do not always agree, the relationship has much less hostility between workers and management.
Doling out money for politics instead training and taking care of their union members.
Throwing younger employees under the bus every time they are faced with 5% pay cut.
You ask a good question on how many city supes will be laid off if union workers are cut. But same question for the union, how big of a cut did the brass at Local 39 take when they went from 1500 members to 1300?
Planned obsolescence is the classic cop out. Its no coincidence that the reliable cars that Americans actually want to buy are built in American non-union factories, while crappy American marque vehicles are left for those with bad credit and Avis rent a car.
Yes there are good union models. BMW sets the standard for labor contracts where union management sits on the board of directors and is responsible for the success of the company. Members are protected, but are also expected to find ways to stay competitive and stay employeed.
Funny that in taking over 2 auto companies last year, the Obama administration didn't say peep towards changing the labor model to something that is actually sustainable, like the BMW model. Obviously this is because the corrupt UAW wants the status quo no matter how much of a dead end it is, and Obama wants to keep that union money flowing in.
Funny you mention meat packing. My brother in law works at American in Green Bay (original sponsors of the GB Packers). Certainly not a glorious job by any means and there is definitely illegals out on the floor. But on the hand it is definitely low wage unskilled labor no matter who is doing it. But this is an immigration problem more than labor problem, as long as there is a ready supply of illegals willing to work for nothing, wages stay low, document the workforce and wages go up. You don't need a union to enforce immigration law.
No where do you touch on the "great role of unions" in elections? Still looking. Root of all that is wrong is special interest elections.
522 & SPOA deferred raises for 2-3 years, but received additional days off in return. in addition, they received a NO layoff guarantee. Now the city wants to take the following from other unions; 4% retro to 06/19/10 + 1 day furlough, which = 5%. If I add that right, that is a 9% cut. Also, the city wants employees to give up raises in healthcare, reduction in required certification pay, etc. The healthcare issue is a double wammy as in 2011 healthcare benefits become taxable under Obamacare.
So are employees outside of fire & police less important? ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Ask SFD if they can put out a fire w/o water? Ask SPD if they can take care of neighborhood problems w/o code enforcement & building inspectors? The answer again is ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Therefore, the city needs to STOP treating employees differently. Yes, i know that PD & fire dodge bullets & run into burning buildings, but utility workers deal with spilling sewage, building inspectors deal with collapsing buildings & code enforcement folks tread on ground that SPD & SFD aren't willing to tread on.
Furthermore, the city has approx. 3 million dollars identified in Community Development Block Grant funds (CDBG), that was identified by Management consultants, a firm hired by the city to review the city's system. These funds were identified as eligible for code enforcement. If these funds were to be used and not turned over to SHRA, the city's general fund would have an additional 3M to spend in fixing the budget. City staff has pointed this issue out to the union & management, but no one is willing to address it. Why? Where is this money being spent now?
What appears to be going on between the city & the union appears to be a head butting contest and not any kind of negotiations. I see this issue heading straight for the courts with the residents of the city paying the price in many, many ways.......