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Minutes 02-03-06 MINUTES OF THE BLUE COLLAR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SESSION BETWEEN THE NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF FIREMEN & OILERS AND THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA, HELD ON FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2006 AT 4:00 P.M., IN CONFERENCE ROOM B, CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA Present: For the City of Boynton Beach Wilfred Hawkins, Assistant City Manager Sharyn Goebelt, Director of Human Resources John Jordan, Assistant Director of Human Resources Bobby Jenkins, Assistant Director of Finance For NCF8o.O Sharon Munley, Trustee, Local 1227 NCF&O Bob Kruper, NCF&O Michael Taylor, NCF&O Mike Osborn, NCF&O Don Roberts, NCF&O Jeff Mark, NCF&O In Audience: Alan Galway Jose Perez Thorley Johnson Dravious Robertson Call to Order The bargaining session was called to order at 4:05 p.m. A sign in sheet was circulated and provided to the Recording Secretary for inclusion with the records of the meeting. Ms. Goebelt announced the City's offer and language on wages and labor management remained the same and the City's position on them was firm. They did, however, make a change to Article 20 under Standby & Callback Pay. The modifications were the ones Ms. Munley had suggested. They added 8.5% increase to minimum/maximums for year two. Ms. Munley questioned whether the City was going to address the Union's two open articles. Ms. Goebelt stated the City's offer was firm. Ms. Munley referred to the contract in place, which said the Union could open wages and two articles. They had opened their two articles and she felt it would be appropriate for the City to respond. Mr. Hawkins said they had responded and their response was not to change the language. Ms. Munley felt the City had not responded at all to Article 14 and Ms. Goebelt agreed, saying the City had chosen not to change any of that language. Meeting Minutes NCF8o.O Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida February 3, 2006 Ms. Goebelt then addressed Article 20.1.3 where the following phrase was added at the end of the section: "until such time exceeds 15 minutes in total for that workweek." Mr. Taylor asked the City why it would come back to the Blue Collar workers with language giving them less than the White Collar workers. Why didn't each group have the same thing? He further stated the City had tried to get the two contracts to be as uniform as possible. When asked what he meant, Mr. Taylor responded he was questioning such things as vacation, holidays, and comp time being computed as time worked. Mr. Taylor wanted to know why that was taken out of the Blue Collar language and why the City did not want to discuss or change it. The City left this in the White Collar contract, he said. Ms. Goebelt said they were two different contracts and the terms and conditions of each contract were negotiated and each contract had different language. Also, each contract was ratified by the Union and approved by the City Commission. The Police and Fire contracts did not mirror each other either, she said. Mr. Osborn remarked the City had wanted both the Blue and White Collar contracts to be compatible and the City wanted the Blue Collar unit to accept everything the White Collar unit had agreed on to make them compatible. Mr. Hawkins declared it was a matter of the issue or articles. The City wanted some items to be compatible, but there were many differences in the two contracts. In terms of workweek, the City was moving towards making the Blue Collar language standard in the future and this would be addressed with the White Collar unit. Ms. Munley asked about the Police contract and questioned whether there had been a lot of money given to the police officers for going to 12-hour days. When the Police went to training, it counted as time worked for the computation of overtime. Mr. Hawkins understood what Ms. Munley was saying, but commented the public safety contracts were different and were approached in a different way. It was much more than just a "money thing." It had more to do with the way the Police Department was organized and operated. They had brought up wage issues and the result had been negotiated. He felt it was hard to compare operations between Police and Fire and the Blue Collar workers. Ms. Munley asked how the City was going to encourage someone to work in a week where there was a holiday. Once the workers figured out they would only be getting straight time in such a case, they would not be willing to work. Would they be made to work? Ms. Munley remarked Blue Collar workers normally had language allowing them to have vacation and holidays count toward the computation of overtime. This was done so that when the City needed them after hours, they would work - there was an incentive. Those hours would be paid as overtime. When the workers on call get called out two and three times a night for a couple of nights in a row, they needed to sleep. Were they going to get out of the "on call" status? That would create a problem with their overtime. The reason Blue Collar employees wanted overtime was because it worked for both parties, she said. Also, the employees could become exhausted and become a safety concern if they had to respond to repeated callbacks. Mr. Hawkins said that overtime was still being offered and was an incentive - it was just not being offered on weeks when there was a holiday on Monday or when an individual took a day of vacation or illness in the same week. Mr. Hawkins' own philosophy was employees could be motivated to work by means other than money. 2 Meeting Minutes NCF8o.O Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida February 3, 2006 Mr. Osborn said the City's water plants operated 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Since they had been very short handed for the previous three years, people were burning out. When someone called in sick, it was hard to find someone to fill in. Certain people were getting stuck working 24 hours straight since there was no one to relieve them. With the language being offered by the City, people were not going to want to come in if they had called in sick or had a holiday during a week because they knew they would not be getting premium pay for it. He stated having someone on duty 24/7 in the water plant was a safety violation. Mr. Osborn indicated the sanitation task workers' hours would not count as overtime under the current offer from the City. He asked how many of them would want to come in on a Saturday since that was the case. The Union was bringing this to the City's attention so it would not cause problems in the future. He felt the Union was asking for peanuts compared to what it could cost the City if someone were stuck at the water plant for 24 hours and the City water was contaminated because they fell asleep or were so groggy they fell into a vat of chlorine or sulfuric acid. Mr. Osborn mentioned someone in his unit had to be fired yesterday and this would mean they would be shorthanded again. He felt it might take six months to nine months to get that position filled. Mr. Kruper recalled after the hurricane emergency was no longer in effect, the sanitation workers were still working overtime for four to five weeks to clean up the City. Did the City believe they would come in and work for straight time when they might have problems at home to handle? He questioned the quality of work that could be expected from people who may be forced to work. Mr. Osborn referred to the negotiations for the current contract when Mr. Livergood mentioned the City wanted to remove this benefit because employees who worked six or seven days straight then called in sick and got paid overtime. Mr. Osborn believed they worked six and seven days straight because they were dedicated to the City and wanted to clean the City up. When they got burned out, they were not allowed to take a vacation day, because they said they were still under an emergency situation. They had to take a sick day. They were then advised they were not under emergency conditions and the City was not going to pay them overtime and the Union had to file a grievance. Many employees did not trust management and would not want to go the extra mile for someone they did not trust. Mr. Osborn felt the City was trying to take long-standing benefits away from the Blue Collar workers, all because a couple of guys called in sick after a hurricane because they had been working six days straight. Ms. Goebelt believed this was something the Blue Collar workers had agreed to in the current contract. Ms. Munley asked Ms. Goebelt to understand the City had allowed the Union to bring up two articles of its choice under the current contract. Mr. Taylor expressed the belief their former agreement had almost been forced on the members in order to obtain the money they had been offered last year. Ms. Munley said they were a year late in getting their wage increases due to articles like these. They finally ratified the contract in order to get the money they needed to provide for their families. Mr. Osborn said that was why they made sure the language was in there to allow the reopening of two articles. Now, the City was saying it would not talk about or change the two articles the Union chose to reopen. 3 Meeting Minutes NCF8o.O Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida February 3, 2006 Mr. Hawkins was hearing the comments being made; however, the City had a fiduciary responsibility, based on the current tax base, to spend the City's money wisely. What the City was doing with the wage package on the table now was to substantially increase what they were paying the workforce. Mr. Osborn said the City's offer would only bring the workers up to 50% of wages paid in the cities comparable to Boynton Beach. Mr. Hawkins asked if Mr. Osborn felt this was not good enough. Mr. Osborn referred to a comment made by Mr. Hawkins at an earlier meeting to the effect that an employee would have to be stupid to leave the City in light of the raises they would be getting over the next three years. Mr. Hawkins confirmed that and stood by it. Mr. Osborn commented the City was saying the Blue Collar employees would not receive the wage increases if they insisted on opening the two articles in question. Mr. Osborn felt he could start work with another City and make more money than he would make in three years with the City's projected increases. Mr. Osborn declared his department had spent more than $200K on overtime because they were so short handed and had done so to keep the citizens safe and comfortable. Many workers went beyond the call of duty because they took pride in their work. The City wanted to take away things the employees had always enjoyed until the hurricanes over the last two years. Mr. Hawkins expressed understanding of Mr. Osborn's point of view and appreciation for the dedication he had referenced. However, the City was a governmental organization, not a moneymaking entity. The benefit packages offered by the City of Boynton Beach were far superior to those offered in the private sector. Mr. Osborn indicated the City wanted to hold and retain the best possible workers, but they could not do this if they gave them 2% on one hand and caused them to lose 4% in overtime on the other. Mr. Hawkins responded the City felt it was doing the best it could to put dollars on the table. The City believed the net effect of its current wage package, over a period of three years, would greatly benefit the workers. It was important for Mr. Osborn to see the net effect of the City's policies in terms of the wage increases and the loss of overtime, during weeks with holidays or vacation/sick time. Ms. Munley did not feel people would be willing to come in on their days off for straight time. Ms. Munley mentioned her request at an earlier meeting for a visual display for each person in the bargaining unit showing how much money they would be getting with the wage increases. She asked that the spreadsheet be alphabetical. She wanted the spread sheet to show how each piece of the wage proposal would affect the individual - the 2%, the 4%, and in some cases, the 5%. She felt they could not settle without having this. Individual employees would have to weigh the benefit of the wage increases against the potential loss of some overtime. Ms. Munley spoke to some employees in the Recreation & Parks Department who were up in arms because a manager told the workers if they did not agree with the City's offer, the 4 Meeting Minutes NCF8o.O Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida February 3, 2006 workers would not get anything. Mr. Hawkins clarified this was not what the manager said. The comment was made that as long as negotiations were ongoing, Blue Collar workers would not get what everyone else was getting and that was a true statement. Ms. Munley and others still maintained this was not what people were being told. Ms. Munley wanted the workers to see what they would be getting before they could determine whether giving up the stance "everything counts towards overtime" was worthwhile to them. She needed it by the end of the following week. She was not saying the Union would "go there" (agree to the City's terms), but felt the workers had to see what the projected raises would mean to them personally in order to make an informed decision. Mr. Hawkins did not feel there would be that much of a difference between the wage offer and the loss a person might experience due to loss of overtime under certain instances, depending on how much overtime that person typically worked. Ms. Goebelt indicated the information Human Resources received from the vendor had to be validated, since they had found some errors. Ms. Munley could not bring the "voice of the people" to the table without this information. Mr. Hawkins made the point that overtime was on top of a person's salary and there was such a thing as proper budgeting. The City felt it was making a significant addition to base pay and overtime was still possible under the City's guidelines. Mr. Osborn referred to Mr. Hawkins' comment about proper budgeting, saying when his department had to spend $230K in overtime due to being short handed, it would have only cost the City about $160K to hire those employees with benefits and that did not equate with proper budgeting. Mr. Hawkins responded it took time to hire people and they wanted to get the right people. Mr. Osborn responded it took six months to have a position posted, and Mr. Hawkins was not sure that was the case. Mr. Osborn was going to keep track of how long it took to post the job of the person fired the day before. Ms. Goebelt did not agree it took six months to post a position. The parties entered into a caucus at 4:45 p.m. and reconvened at 5:04 p.m. Ms. Munley stated the Union might be willing to agree to the City's terms, but she needed everyone to see a printout of what they would receive and determine their reaction first. The printout would contain the 2% retro, the 4% market adjustment, and the 5% for those whose job classifications had been upgraded, with a total percentage on the last column. Any merit increases would be in addition to this, but an employee could mentally project what they had received for merit the previous year and factor it in, all other things being equal. If an individual had to be brought up to the new minimum, this would be indicated and shown in a column of its own and as part of a person's total percentage of increase in the last column. The employee's hourly rate would be in the first column with the other adders in subsequent columns. The Union stewards and Ms. Munley would get the information out to the employees as quickly as possible. Ms. Munley asked the stewards to not only show the employee the printout, but to determine how they felt about the City's proposal. 5 Meeting Minutes NCF8o.O Negotiations Boynton Beach, Florida February 3, 2006 Mr. Jenkins felt the employees would be pleased with what they saw in the printout. The question of whether there had to be ratification of the Memo of Understanding for sweatshirts was raised. Ms. Goebelt indicated Ms. Munley could put something in writing about waiving ratification for the sweatshirts. Ms. Goebelt noted they had scheduled another meeting for March 8, but Human Resources was not available on that date. Ms. Munley stated the next meeting was scheduled for February 23, 2006 at 10:00 a.m. Ms. Goebelt commented that even if the Blue Collar unit and the City came to agreement at the meeting on the 23rd, the White Collar employees would be seeing the increases in their checks on February 24. The Blue Collar employees would have to wait until the next pay period. Ms. Goebelt noted there was only one City Commission meeting in March, so if agreement was reached on the 23rd and two weeks were allowed for ratification, the Blue Collar employees might not see their increases until early April. However, if the Commission approved it on March 21, and if Mr. Jenkins had all the information necessary, he thought it might be possible to show the increases in the paychecks of March 24. Ms. Munley brought up the language of Article 18.4, "with no corresponding increase to individual employees" and asked what it meant. Ms. Goebelt said it meant the minimum and maximum ranges would go up, but that did not automatically give the incumbents more money. Ms. Munley felt everyone knew that, and she asked if it could be deleted. Ms. Goebelt responded it had been added by Legal and she would check with them. Ms. Munley said the City had her word she would not call up the City and complain that everyone did not get the 8.47%. The meeting adjourned at 5:13 p.m. Respectfully submitted, ~1( t/&~J Susan Collins Recording Secretary (020606) 6