Minutes 06-18-02IAFF Local 1891
6/18~02
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Attending:
For IAFF Matt Keeler Secretary x6340
Barkley Garnsey Business Agent x6327
Randy Jute President x6340
Mike Fitzpatrick Treasurer x6626
Dean Kinser Vice President, x6340
IAFF
For the City Wilfred Hawkins Assistant City Mgr. X6012
Mary Munro Budget Coordinator x6314
Jim Ness Deputy Fire Chief x6333
Carol Cheek HR Coordinator x6278
The meeting started at 1:00 p.m. The City and the Union recorded the meeting.
Mr. Hawkins stated that he understood they had a labor/management meeting with the
Chief and Mr. Ness said yes, last Thursday. Based on that meeting, Mr. Hawkins
thought there were some issues discussed in the first meeting that might have been
resolved.
Article 7 - Rules and Regulations
Mr. Jute stated that they had a problem with being notified of changes in SOGS and so
forth and they had a signed letter from Chief Bingham that this would be taken care of
and they would not have to do it through an article change and that the City could
scratch Article 7, if they liked.
Article 11 - Physicals
Mr. Jute stated that in Section 3C, they had wanted the flu shots and since then, Deputy
Chief Ness sent them a letter on flu inoculations and took care of this. They already got
the signup in order and were satisfied with Article 11.
Article 29 - Promotions
Mr. Jute did not believe they were quite finished with this one and Dean Kinser agreed.
Mr. Hawkins asked if this would be handled outside of negotiations or with the labor
management team.
Mr. Keeler stated they were still discussing it and did not know yet.
Article 18, Compassionate Leave
Mr. Hawkins agreed to the request for inclusion of the following in this article:
Meeting Minutes
I~,FF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18, 2002
For approval for compassionate leave, add sister-in-law, brother-in-law, spouse's
grandparents, and foster children.
Preamble
Mr. Hawkins brought up a proposed change to the preamble. Mr. Jute stated that they
had scratched this item.
Article IV, Union Business & Section 2 Addition Ref. Union Time Pools
Mr. Jute reported that they followed Mr. Hawkins' suggestion and spoke with Dilcy
Hurtado in the Payroll Department. Mr. Keeler stated that Ms. Hurtado said there would
be no problem at all with generating the code for it and to just let her know when it starts.
She said she would prefer to have it in February, which would not be a problem. They
would go with whatever dates she wanted. Mr. Jute thought it was May or July and
either one would be all right with them. Mr. Garnsey said if we do specific dates like May
or July, we would also have to do in October for overages. If they are going to be losing
any time, they would prefer to donate to the Union time pool if they have any left over,
which is the big reason they were doing this. Mr. Jute said there would be very few
people involved in this.
Mr. Hawkins referred to the language in Section 1 of this article and Mr. Jute stated that
this language had been there as long as he could remember. Mr. Hawkins asked Mr.
Ness if 24 hours were enough. Mr. Ness said that these were treated like any other time
off, scheduled ahead of time generally. The number of 10 shifts is adequate but there
are times when the guys do go over that. He was pleased that the Union stepped up to
the plate to offer those additional hours for the pool and this was a good thing. He did
not see any problems with it. It had not caused any problems in the past. They work
pretty well with it.
Mr. Hawkins asked what the last detail was to settle the issue with Payroll.
Mr. Jute thought it might be the dates, but he did not know if it had to be in the contract.
Mr. Hawkins stated he would leave this up to the people who were dealing with it.
Mr. Keeler stated that he would meet with Ms. Hurtado when he left this meeting to see
if they could do it in October like Mr. Garnsey said, or at least some time in September
so people did not have a situation where they would lose it.
Mr. Ness thought the question had been what impact it would have on Finance as to
additional workload and from what he understood; it was a relatively simple matter.
Mr. Hawkins asked if agreement had been reached on this issue.
Ms. Cheek brought up the last sentence in section 2, where it said, "Donations can be
made from accrued vacation or comp time in any increment so long as the members
have enough vacation or comp time."
Meeting Minutes
IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
Mr. Jute said he thought you had to have at least 120 hours and that you could not go
below the minimums that were already stated.
Ms. Cheek stated that it should be as long as a member has 120 hours in their bank
after any donation of time.
Mr. Garnsey said if they have vacation picks outstanding, like they pick one year in
advance, and you have already said you are going to take this two weeks off, that you
can't turn around and give that vacation time away now since it is next month and it is
already scheduled. Mr. Jute said that in the sick leave article itself, Article 17, it states
that if you want to transfer your 100 hours that you cannot drop below 240 hours of the
transfer. We can run right off Article 17 on that. But it doesn't have to do with sick time;
it is vacation time.
Mr. Ness stated that you are looking at having a minimum of 50 hours of vacation
banked before - Mr. Ness said there were two places they talked about a minimum - the
120 hours and the other was 240 hours. He did not see it as being a big issue.
Mr. Jute said the point was that they have to have enough time to donate.
Mr. Ness asked if the donations would be in small increments.
Mr. Jute thought it would be in four-hour increments.
Mr. Ness thought that when it came to four hours, it was unlikely that this would push
someone over the edge.
Mike Fitzpatrick stated that a 240-hour donation of vacation time was made when Mr.
Haig was in excess of 200 hours. He donated the excess to the Heart Walk. So, there
would be times when it was higher than 4-hour increments. Mr. Jute stated that Mr.
Ness had only wanted an average amount of time for the donations.
Mr. Hawkins said as long as the Union understands what "enough" is in this context, he
had no problem.
Mr. Dean stated that you couldn't donate what you don't have.
Mr. Hawkins suggested the word "available" instead of "enough." Mr. Hawkins asked
who had generated this.
Mr. Keeler said they had. He would retype it and get it back to Mr. Hawkins today.
Mr. Hawkins asked if this word change was sufficient for this article.
Mr. Jute thought everything else looked pretty good.
Mr. Hawkins said, okay, we could bring closure to that one.
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Meeting Minutes
IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
Mr. Ness asked to go back a minute where it said, "The time pool shall be kept by the
Union and the Fire Department." Should that read that it should be kept by Finance? Mr.
Hawkins stated their only concern was deduction from the vacation account.
Mr. Jute thought that the Fire Department was just administration. Mr. Keeler stated that
when he talked to Dilcy Hurtado about it, if she types in 8 and someone has 5 hours,
they can't do 8 and that is how it goes.
Mr. Hawkins stated that the Fire Department and Dilcy would have a code that each of
you knows about so there will be checks and balances.
Mr. Jute said, very good. Ms. Munro said that Jean would have to code it in the process
of doing payroll.
Mr. Hawkins asked if both sides were clear on this issue.
Mr. Jute stated that they were.
Article 8 - Hours of Work
Mr. Jute said they were still working on this one, waiting for more information. They
would like to work on that during the next round.
Mr. Hawkins stated that just to put their concern on the table, it would be the cost impact.
Mr. Jute said that was correct and that they knew that and planned to have that figure
also. They will bring everything they can but some details were very time-consuming
right now.
Mr. Hawkins stated that as part of the cost impact, the City would be concerned about
the number of new bodies that might be required from this as well - all that has to do
with cost too.
Mr. Jute said they would try to bring information on every angle for questions. They
wanted to do a good job and were not quite prepared yet.
Mr. Hawkins asked if there were any jurisdictions where this type of schedule had
already been implemented.
Mr. Keeler stated that there were 166 other departments.
Mr. Hawkins asked if they were of comparable size.
Mr. Jute did not know about comparable size. He said there was one locally of fairly
comparable size, but he did not have that information.
Mr. Hawkins said this was one of the things they would look at. Mr. Ness stated that it
would be helpful when they did their analysis if they could find another department that
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Meeting Minutes
IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
made the transition, particularly the impact ofthe transition, ratherthan whatthey are
doing today.
Article 12, Group Insurance
Mr. Jute asked if the City still wanted to defer this item.
Mr. Hawkins stated that the City wanted to be sure that what was agreed to in the last
re-opener gets transferred into the new language. Mr. Hawkins believed they had agreed
to that language. He said they might want to agree today that they were going to deal
with that issue as well because the latest information he got back from the consultants
indicated that while they had gotten Blue Cross Blue Shield down to what "may be an
acceptable percentage of increase," there will be an increase. He did not think that the
timing of those negotiations would help here. He wanted to defer that discussion for a
subsequent meeting. They want to have a majority or all of this wrapped up by August if
possible.
Mr. Jute said that, obviously, they wanted to get everything taken care of as soon as
possible too.
Ms. Cheek said that they would know the answer by August because that was their
Open Enrollment.
Mr. Dean stated that they had come for the re-openers and hoped to avoid any language
pertaining to re-openers in the contract. Mr. Jute stated, "if possible, because we have
seen what happens in the past, it is a never-ending thing." If you have one re-opener, it
is almost like having the whole contract reopened.
Mr. Hawkins said he had no problem with being flexible, but he would rather keep
expectations lower on that particular matter, plus he knew there were some other salary
issues to talk about.
Mr. Jute stated that they could hold off on that right now.
Article 14, Wages
Mr. Jute asked Mr. Hawkins what he wanted to speak about on wages today.
Mr. Hawkins said they had said that when it comes to Lieutenants' pay, they were all on
the same page in that they could need to be adjusted. We are looking at making those
adjustments.
Mr. Jute agreed.
Mr. Hawkins asked if there were anything else, from the Union's perspective, that
needed discussion. He wanted to make sure that if there were any wage issues that it
would be in conjunction with the term of the contract, for three years.
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IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
Mr. Jute agreed, stating that they would do this with the contract. On wages, besides
what Mr. Hawkins was speaking of, they were looking at a change in the Lieutenants.
Obviously it is tough to speak this early too much about wages; it is usually saved for
last. It ties in with health insurance and it ties in with everything. At this point in time he
did not know what he could say. Mr. Jute said they were looking at a change in the
Lieutenants and that currently it was at 5% and they were looking at changing that.
Besides that, just normal wage adjustments, he did not know if there was anything else.
Mr. Garnsey asked about longevity issues.
Mr. Hawkins said they had no problem philosophically with a longevity consideration.
Mr. Jute said that they had not drafted their final proposal on that issue yet.
Comparisons to Other Cities and Jurisdictions for Pay and Compensation
Mr. Hawkins wanted to talk a little bit about this, saying that he knew that the Union used
comparables in this issue and so did the City, when they look at market readjustments.
He wanted the City and the Union to come to an understanding about the source of the
comparison - to whom would the City be comparing itself.
Mr. Jute said, "As far as wages?"
Mr. Hawkins said, "wages and compensation."
Mr. Jute stated that everything they had been using was South Florida.
Mr. Hawkins wanted to be more specific as to what other jurisdictions. Mr. Jute said that
Palm Beach County and Broward were used for the most part. Mr. Garnsey said they
used Deerfield and Mr. Jute said that was Broward. Mr. Fitzpatrick asked Mr. Hawkins if
the City had a list of comparables it was using.
Mr. Hawkins stated that he preferred to start new with this for both of their sakes. He
wanted both sides to think about this and come to an agreement about the exact
municipality or other organization with whom the City would be compared. Mr. Hawkins
said that from the City's perspective, he did not know if Palm Beach County was directly
comparable. The County Fire Department right now is going into the "municipal
firefighting business" but this is still a big county with geographical differences. You
could be assigned to Loxahatchee, for instance, and you still get paid the same as if you
were assigned to handle Boca Raton. Because of the difference in geographics, urban
versus rural, the number of calls and type of activity are probably different but the pay is
the same. So, that is a concern the City might have with using Palm Beach County as a
comparable. It might be more comfortable with other, like jurisdictions, for instance,
Delray Beach. That would be fine. It is a growing municipality with similar geographics
and demographics to the City. Tamarac would be another comparable municipal
jurisdiction in Broward County. Mr. Hawkins wanted to agree ahead of time on
comparables as far as jurisdictions were concerned. It might save some time.
Mr. Jute did not think they would be able to come up with that today.
Meeting Minutes
I,~FF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18, 2002
Mr. Hawkins was not asking for that but wanted all parties to think along those lines.
Mr. Jute stated that they could come up with some lists. They had no problem with that.
Mr. Kinser stated that when they look at comparisons, they also look at demographics
like the population, a City of approximately 60K. They also look at the size of the
department and the run volume.
Mr. Hawkins said, "absolutely."
Mr. Kinser said they if they use a department like Pompano who run more calls than this
City but because of their staffing, more stations, and more personnel on staff, when you
equal out the call volume, this department runs more calls than they do per station, per
unit. Those are some of the comparables that when you look at Pompano Beach, you
would say that does not really compare to Boynton's geographics because of industrial
areas and things like that but if you look at the content and the call volume and the call
structure and type of calls, those are the type of comparables that will be used. That is
where we are coming from when we look at that so it is not really to say we look at
demographics where we have to use a population size of 50 to 75K because that
depends on how it is spread out.
Mr. Hawkins was trying to accomplish a mutual understanding and premise of what is
meant when "comparable" is brought up. He wanted to agree on a denominator within
the term comparable and have the same understanding.
Mr. Jute said we don't want you using Pahokee and us using the City of Palm Beach?
There's no problem with that.
Mr. Hawkins wanted everyone to come to an understanding and agreement on what
comparables would be used and what makes up those comparables, the denominators.
Mr. Jute said the only drawback on certain things like using Palm Beach County, that
might not seem fair to you or us, because of the difference, was that when comparing
salaries for firefighters/paramedics and there is a Palm Beach County station two miles
from here, (and when you are recruiting people), it is almost hard not to use that in a
study, someone who is so close geographically. But, he understood where Mr. Hawkins
was coming from also. He said comparisons were tough. It would be hard to say that if
you are going to pay somebody "X" amount of dollars here but Palm Beach County is
paying a whole lot more or less, it is obvious where this person is going to go when there
is only two miles of difference.
Mr. Hawkins said he would not discount that consideration but that it would be a "sidebar
variable," not a part of what he would call a fact in terms of coming up with numbers.
Mr. Jute understood.
Mr. Hawkins said if the person lives in Palm Beach County he can get in his car and
drive there as easily as here. But, on his list of considerations, that would be down on
the list.
Meeting Minutes
IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
Mr. Jute said when you do comparisons, from everything he had read, you try to do it on
like departments and they would try to do that and would come up with a list that they
would be considering for most of their comparisons and he had no problem with that at
all.
Mr. Hawkins said he was not trying to be difficult but at the same time, saw a need to
have like thinking on that when discussions start.
Mr. Jute said they would have no problem with e-mailing the departments they would be
using to Mr. Hawkins.
Mr. Hawkins agreed and said that they could talk from there as to why they came up with
those departments.
Article 22 - Court Time
Mr. Jute asked about this issue. Mr. Jute handed Mr. Hawkins draft language on section
3 of this article. Mr. Jute said they were talking about the Police F.O.P. language and
when they first drafted it, changed theirs, but after rereading it, ran it right off of their
language (FOP). Mr. Keller said that the draft language in section 3 was identical to the
language in the Police F.O.P. contract. Mr. Jute said there was no change at all in that
and theirs was including travel, and they left it as F.O.P's so there would be no problem
with it. Other than that, there was no change, just the F.O.P. language, which he had in
the contract. Mr. Jute said this did not happen too often. Unlike the Police, where he
was sure it happened all the time, it was pretty rare but had affected some of their
employees and that was why they wanted to talk about it.
Mr. Hawkins said the only thing he was concerned about was travel expense. Mr. Jute
stated they had put in "excluding travel expenses", section 2, third sentence.
Mr. Hawkins asked whether he was excluding travel.
Mr. Jute replied yes and Mr. Hawkins said okay.
Mr. Hawkins said they had no problem with paying court time minimum standby at three
hours pay but were not in favor of paying court time and travel. Different versions of
section 2 were compared.
There was a problem in section 2 that Mr. Jute noticed. He then said that anything over
48 hours would be time and a half. Mr. Keeler said that sections 1 and 2 were from the
old contract and section 3 is what was copied directly from the FOP. Mr. Jute said it was
section B of the FOP and section 2 of this one. Mr. Keeler said they just noticed that in
section 1 where it said, "going to three hours," Mr. Jute said they write it differently than
they did. When they have anything over 48 hours, it is time and a half and that would be
the case but FOP wrote it in and they did not; they just took it as overtime and they print
it out. He did not know if it was necessary to print it out. He stated that where they said
"excluding travel," they had written 1.5 times above that. That was the difference.
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IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
Mr. Hawkins did not anticipate any problem with this and if there was anything that
needed to be brought back, it would be.
Mr. Jute said they were trying to keep it straightforward to the FOP language and that
the impact to the Police was probably every day but to them, it may not even impact at
all during the year.
Article 2 - Discrimination
Mr. Jute asked to discuss this article. All agreed it had been touched on previously but
not to any extent. Mr. Hawkins said this was fine. We will have this preliminary, subject
to review by Legal. Mr. Jute said okay and that it was pretty cut and dried. Mr. Hawkins
said, "Under E.O., you want somebody to have a right to..." Mr. Jute said, "right, you
know exactly where we are coming from; it was just to clean up stuff, that was all."
Article 40 - Duration
Mr. Jute said they only changed the dates in this. Mr. Ness asked what dates were
changed. Mr. Keeler said they just changed 2002 to 2005. Mr. Jute asked Mr. Hawkins if
he had completed the requested date changes and Mr. Hawkins replied, "yes."
Article 33 - Grievance Procedure
Mr. Hawkins said they wanted some type of flow chad or diagram of the procedure.
Mr. Jute said they were not ready to discuss this item. They were making some changes
and had not come to a finalized version yet.
Mr. Ness asked if they wanted to put the existing grievance procedure on a flow chart.
Mr. Jute said they were going to do that so it was printed out and they just did not quite
finish that. There would not be any changes to anything; they were just going to put a
flow chart in; no grievance procedure changes at all.
Mr. Hawkins just wanted to be sure he understood what they wanted on that.
Mr. Jute stated they were just trying to simplify it if someone read the contract.
Mr. Ness offered to do a flow chad from his end so they could compare them and Mr.
Jute said he was in favor of that.
Article 23 - Working out of Classification
Mr. Hawkins asked that this be discussed. Did you talk about eliminating old language,
about a minimum number of shifts?
Mr. Jute said their version of the article was not printed yet but he went over it. There
were two problems. One was on the sixth occurrence and twelve hour shifts - you had
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IAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
to do it with no pay for six occurrences. This language was put in there many years ago
and they feel because of the career ladder and the education requirements they had
now, which were pretty extensive, that this was the old language of on-the-job-training;
whereas here, besides on-the-job training, we have extensive educational requirements,
so we felt that this was "old school" language and we wanted to eliminate that. They
were not ready to talk about this yet because they did not know where they were going
with Lieutenants' pay. Secondly, he noticed and did not understand that when you work
out of class - say you are a driver working as a lieutenant, and there is a 5% difference
in pay - if you are working overtime you get overtime at your regular pay but you don't
get paid at the lieutenant's rate of pay. They never understood how that happened and
it has happened and they wanted to change it to be that when you are getting overtime,
you get paid for your complete pay.
Mr. Hawkins asked, "If you were an acting lieutenant and were asked to work overtime,
you want to get paid overtime pay at the lieutenant's rate?"
Mr. Jute said, "Correct."
Mr. Hawkins said, "You do not do that now?"
Mr. Jute responded no, and that it had been like that and they never quite understood it.
They want to change that overtime is overtime for whatever position you are in. Until
some other things are figured out, it was hard to discuss but Mr. Jute wanted Mr.
Hawkins to know where they were heading.
Mr. Hawkins just wanted to make sure he knew what was outstanding on this issue.
Article 19 - Vacation
Mr. Hawkins brought up Article 19 and Mr. Jute asked Mr. Kinser if he had completed
this. He stated that Barkley had some material. Mr. Jute said he did not know they were
going to get that far today.
Mr. Hawkins said they had talked about eliminating what they had agreed to in the re-
opener.
Mr. Jute agreed, saying that they had the A & the B plan and they wanted to eliminate
the B plan which would get rid of about % of the article, and have no more A plan either,
just a vacation plan period. They ran into a problem with time because of the way they
choose their vacation time, because of the October change. Mr. Kinser stated they
changed from a calendar year to a fiscal year for approval. Mr. Kinser had a rough draft
proposal on this article and stated that when they did make this change, that only gives
an opportunity for members to pick vacation from January to September, a nine-month
period. They need to be below their maximum prior to October 1 each year and yet pick
vacation from January to December. So individuals cannot bank their time for the
months of October, November, and December, which are highly desirable vacation
months. Ms. Cheek asked if they could change their "picking time." Mr. Kinser said that
is what they were presenting, to change vacation picks from a calendar to a fiscal year.
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iAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
The only problem is that they would have to exempt the accrual for one year. They
would have to be able to go over their max because they could not start picking vacation
for this October because the months of October, November, and December were
already full. What they would have to do is pick vacation from January of 2003 to
September 30 of 2003 and that only gives nine months for members to use vacation
time so that on September 30 of 2003, they would have to have that exemption to go
over - like they had the language in before. Ms. Cheek said we did it when we changed
- we allowed anybody who would have gone over that to keep it. Mr. Jute said they run
so tight on their vacation now with only two days available and the amount of people -
there was no way they could do it without a change. Mr. Kinser said they took the
language they developed in their last contract and changed the date so that from
October 1 of 2003, you would be able to go over your max but by September 30 of 2004,
you would need to be under your two-year maximum. Those are the two changes. Ms.
Cheek said they did it this way before for everybody else.
Mr. Hawkins said at the re-opener they somewhat maintained the system but gave them
more days on one side. Also, he could not disagree with the proposal but would need to
digest it a little more.
Mr. Jute said he would be happy to bring what comparable cities had on this vacation
issue for the days. Basically the A plan has been the same for a long time and they did
not want to increase that but just wanted to be on the same page. He will bring more
information to the next meeting.
Mr. Hawkins said they were looking at it from an overall City perspective, because what
was done here would probably have implications throughout the organization. Having
said that, that was the basis of how they had to look at this. It would be an affordability
type of thing. He did not know if they wanted to set a precedent here because every
other employee will recognize it. So it would be an affordability type of thing.
Mr. Jute said as far as the other organizations he could not answer; but, as far as
affordability to the Fire Department, vacation is never granted if it causes overtime.
Mr. Hawkins understood that but stated that when it comes to the other Unions and the
remainder of the employees, this particular issue will have effects across the
organization. Submit the information that you want and we will talk further about it.
Mr. Fitzpatrick asked if everybody else had a split system. Mr. Kinser said no, except for
non-exempts. Ms. Cheek said that even exempts have the same problem. When you
come in the door, if you came in after 1991 or 1993, exempts get four extra days a year
but it is four extra days on your A or B schedule, depending on when you came in. Mr.
Kinser said he knew the concern from the City's standpoint was to open Pandora's box
and that they did not want to go through the hassle of assessing the Plan As and Plan
Bs for five different labor organizations, but they were looking at comparables for their
Plan A and Plan B and felt this plan was a little deficient as to vacation time. Mr.
Garnsey said they could keep the two-tier plan and add time to both of them. Mr. Jute
said that was always an option but they were trying to simplify the contract. They were
trying to compact it, simplify it and that was another option. He did not like that option.
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iAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18,2002
He liked something simpler and across the board. They were trying to compact the
contract and were willing to talk about anything.
Mr. Hawkins said that, unfortunately, with this issue, there was a broad-brush approach
that the City would have to deal with.
Mr. Ness asked Mr. Jute if there were changes made to the re-opener language on
vacation.
Mr. Jute said it was changed consistent with the changes of the dates for the extension
of the holding over of time until the end of December.
Mr. Ness also asked if the change of eliminating the B plan had changed.
Mr. Fitzpatrick said the re-opener had a B plus plan. Mr. Garnsey said they added dates
to the Plan B vacation time and they cleaned up some of the language relative to just the
changeover to the fiscal year, and that it was taken out but they were thinking of putting
it back in to handle the issue.
Mr. Ness asked how close this proposal was to the re-opener language.
Mr. Jute stated that it was the same except for eleven days for Plan B and need to
change vacation picks to fiscal year.
Mr. Ness asked if eliminating the carryover was very similar.
Mr. Garnsey said it was the same language. Mr. Kinser said he could supply the
ballpark draft but needed it back.
Mr. Hawkins suggested that the language be the same as the re-opener language.
Mr. Kinser said that in section 2 there was language that changed the vacation policy
and procedures from fiscal to calendar year.
Mr. Hawkins said the bottom line is that the issue had to be resubmitted, reflecting the
language previously agreed to in the re-opener, and the discussion can start from there.
Everything talked about today was just putting basic positions on the table and we need
to go back and talk facts on this matter at the next session.
Mr. Jute said that was fine.
Medical Certification
Mr. Ness brought this issue up.
Mr. Jute said this tied directly in to wages and asked if that would have to do with
paramedic pay.
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'iAFF Local 1891
Second Meeting for New Contract Negotiations
Boynton Beach, Florida
June 18, 2002
Mr. Ness stated that it did. You had mentioned increasing paramedic incentive pay.
Mr. Jute said right now, it all tied into wages and was something that had to be talked
about and he did not know if it was even fair to talk about this before talking about the
standard wage article.
Mr. Hawkins agreed, saying that when it was talked about, it should be talked about all
at one time.
Mr. Jute thought it would be a waste of time to talk about it now and Mr. Hawkins
agreed.
Mr. Ness asked if this would be part of the comparison package.
Mr. Jute said that there would be a whole wage package and that everything would be
thrown in there. Mr. Fitzpatrick asked if they would be talking about section 3 and Mr.
Jute said, "Not right now."
Mr. Jute stated that he did not have anything else that he wanted to bring up today and
that they would try to come back with more information on the vacation article and
Articles 8, 12, 14, and 26. He thought these would be dealt with at one time. They would
have to decide about when they would be talking about them. That will take a whole
session just to start working on.
Mr. Hawkins said they would have to get to the nitty-gritty and would have to come
prepared to do so and Mr. Jute agreed.
Schedules were discussed - Mr. Hawkins will be here for the rest of June. He will be out
on July 10, 11, and 12 and also will not be here the week of July 22-26. July 4 is a
holiday. Mr. Kinser said they would try for something between July 13 and 22"d. Mr. Jute
will be out two weeks in August. Mr. Kinser will e-mail Carisse.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan Collins
Recording Secretary
(one tape)
(0618O2)
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