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Minutes 08-16-07 MINUTES OF THE BLUE COLLAR COLLECTIVE BARGAINING SESSION BETWEEN THE NCF&O AND THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH HELD ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2007 AT 1:00 P.M. IN THE FIRE POLICE TRAINING ROOM, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA Present: For the City of Boynton Beach For NCF&O Sharyn Goebelt, HR Director Jim Cherof, City Attorney Michael Low, Deputy Utilities Director Bobby Jenkins, Assistant Finance Director Marylee Coyle, Assistant HR Director Bruce Boyens, Florida Public Service Unit of SEIU Don Roberts, U.S., NCF&O Kalem Mahd, U.s., NCF&O Jeff Mark, U.S., NCF&O Mike Osborn, U.s., NCF&O Absent: Sharon Munley, NCF&O Trustee Jim Cherof, City Attorney, opened the bargaining session at 9:08 a.m. Self- introductions were made. The City was dealing with the petition to change the bargaining unit. The City did not respond, indicating they were prepared to let the employees be represented by whatever union they wanted. Bruce Boyens, Florida Public Service Unit of SEIU, responded as of today, the east side of the State was sitting before PERC waiting for the preparers responses. The west side of the State had to do a revote because of a glitch on August 30, 2007. He advised they went ahead with the east side formation. After the revote, the papers would be submitted. Mr. Boyens confirmed none of this had any effect on the bargaining and Mr. Boyens role would stay the same. Attorney Cherof advised the Commission had a closed door session on Union contract issues. He wanted to touch on items that were part of the negotiations. In the essence of time, he advised there were some items that they had clear direction on relative to what the Commission would or would not ratify. He suggested taking certain articles off the table. These items were: · Right of employee to revert back to prior position following promotion. These were to stay with the current language. The promotion carried the risk. 1 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Blue Collar Boynton Beach, Florida August 16, 2007 · Additional holidays. The City's position was to stay with the current and status quo. · The City's position was to stay with the current and status quo in regard to adding the category of domestic partner to leave. · The City was not prepared to pay Shift Differential. · The City was not prepared to pay beach or boat ramp passes as a benefit. · The City was not prepared to allow union insignia's on City Uniforms. · The City was not prepared to provide extended leave of absence to employees and would maintain the current status quo. Don Roberts arrived at 9:14 a.m. Attorney Cherof explained with respect to what employees are paid at time of hire, that was a management right and the City would not negotiate that management right. He distinguished that from the concept of what the minimums and maximums of a position were, which was a mandatory subject of bargaining. Attorney Cherof highlighted articles considered as monetary in nature that could be considered as a package. Those articles were: · Wages (Article 18) · Hours of Work and Overtime, (Article 14) · Insurance, (Article 41) · Term of the agreement, (Article 54 Duration) · Standby Pay (Article 20) · Probationary Period (Article 48) · Task Assignment (Article 15) · Time off to engage in union activity, (Article 10) Attorney Cherof advised all else not in those categories of the package were open; the rest was status quo and still acceptable with the language changes. The Union caucused at 9;17 a.m. The Union reconvened at 9:37 a.m. The Union wanted to discuss the articles referenced by the City. The City agreed to discuss them using the Union's language. Article 18 - Wages. Working from the Union's language, the City agreed to a 5% base wage increase effective October 1,2007. 2 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Blue Collar Boynton Beach, Florida August 16, 2007 The City could agree to the Unions proposal to use the date of April 1st for employees to receive a 2-4% merit increase. Article 14 - Hour of Work and Overtime. The City's position was hours actually worked constituted hours for the purpose of calculating overtime and not the other status of other types of work being added in. The language the City proposed was consistent with the Fair Labor Standards Act and still afforded significant opportunity for people to work overtime. Attorney Cherof advised if an employee was off on a holiday, they were paid for the holiday, but those hours did not constitute hours actually worked for the calculation of overtime. The concept of overtime was the extra hours over 40 hours constituted a physical burden and the overtime pay was to compensate for that. Attorney Cherof advised in the instances referencing holidays, there was no burden. Mr. Roberts explained it was one thing to call in sick and another when the government determined what days are off and what days are a holiday. The City explained the Union negotiated that and that was a provision of collective bargaining. Mr. Boyens did not agree with the City's interpretation of overtime for the present day. Article 41 - Insurance. Attorney Cherof advised with a one year contract, they could hold to the status quo on insurance. He explained to date, the City's insurance carrier kept total premiums to less than 10%. Other municipalities had up to 15%, and 19% increases. The City, in past years, had been through the double digit insurance increases and the pay increases never went to the employees. Ms. Goebelt explained last year the Memorandum of Understanding was to give employees options for insurance. This year they offered a fourth plan for more affordable insurance. She explained they were a different set of benefits, but they were still good benefits. The Union expressed a concern for many employees was their doctors were not on the new or updated plans. Ms. Goebelt explained that was a Blue Option issue; doctors had to go through a procedure to apply and it was intentional because doctors have to go through a process in order to be on the plan. About 80% of doctors are included in the plan. The City was giving options to their employees. Attorney Cherof explained doctors negotiate with the carrier and go in and out of the plan. While the City agreed with the comment, that was not something they could guarantee. Ms. Goebelt explained Blue Collar representatives were not in attendance for the insurance committee meetings except for one focus group. Attorney Cherof thought the insurance Boynton Beach provided was superior to those provided by other municipalities. Mr. Osborn differed. He explained he had often heard from other employees it was cheaper to put their children on an individual plan than as a dependent. 3 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Blue Collar Boynton Beach, Florida August 16, 2007 Attorney Cherof asked if SEIU had, or was looking at any insurance package to offer their employees. Mr. Boyens explained that was a possibility he would have to look into. They have offered that in the past. Mr. Boyens would contact Ms. Goebelt with applicable information. Ms. Louise Malone was the individual who may contact her. Ms. Goebelt pointed out there was an existing agreement in place for this year, but any change would be for future years. There was agreement that having different vendors may result in better rates. The Union did not want insurance increases to eat the raise. Attorney Cherof explained the bottom line for the insurance clause was they would maintain the status quo for this year, but their concern was the ability of the City to absorb increases each year. Article 20 - Standby Pay. Mr. Low discussed they were aiming to have a rate on a daily basis. The current rate was one hour a day, seven day maximum. Mr. Low wanted to have a flat rate per week. Mr. Osborn objected and indicated the white collar contract was the same as theirs. Mr. Low explained there were no white collar employees on standby. Mr. Osborne explained for the Personnel Policy Manual employees, there was nothing in there, but the City elected to pay them. Ms. Goebelt thought Mr. Osborn was talking about two different issues. Mr. Osborn explained he does not leave the house because of the standby policy. They have a 15 minute window to get there. It was not worth it for him to be on call if he doesn't get the hour per day. He referenced the Fair Labor Standards Act. Attorney Cherof thought the rule was overstated. Mr. Osborn explained when people get called back, there was work needing to be done. He explained it was burdensome whenever he was on call because there was no one else to cover. He advised there are two people on standby and they cannot 31ways fix the problem. There might be an issue of sufficient cross training and increasing the pool. The City was trying to make the provision easier to administer. One way was through a flat rate and the other part was to try to make it easier for the actual pay when an employee was called out. Attorney Cherof advised the task for the City was to cross train. Mr. Osborn explained right now the schedules are written weekly, but if someone had an emergency that was why the provision was for an hour per day. If someone had an emergency where they needed to do something on a day and they know they cannot 4 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Blue Collar Boynton Beach, Florida August 16, 2007 cover call, someone else would take it and it would be covered. He explained if you set it for a full week, they would lose workers. He explained if they used the flat rate plan, it was too cumbersome and that was why they switched it to the hour a day. They switched it to make it more flexible and help keep people on the rotation list. He explained it worked great the way it was now. Mr. Mahd explained a coworker informed him he hoped that the provision was not changed. Cross training employees was suggested. Mr. Osborn explained the biggest draw for on call was in Utilities. Currently they have three beepers. He expounded if they had people cross trained between the different fields, three beepers would not be needed. He explained he tried to bring it to management. There are new mechanic employees that have never worked outside of one particular area. Mr. Low did not disagree, and advised they started to bring some treatment operators back and forth and should continue with technical support. There are only three mechanics that can work anywhere. One was going to be an electrician. Mr. Osborn explained no matter where he is, even when he is on vacation, he always accommodates the on call. He explained, however, employees have other jobs too. If they converted to a week long system, the City would lose employees. Probationary Period (Article 48) The City proposed no change, but there would be clarifying language. Ms. Goebelt inserted language from the Personnel Policy Manual to make it consistent with the White Collar. Attorney Cherof provided a history on this section. The Union's position was to not change. The parties agreed to maintain the status quo. Article 15 - Task Assignment. Attorney Cherof referenced 15.1.1. There was a language change and the Union proposed to delete a portion of the language. The language under discussion pertained to duties assigned by the Supervisor. Mr. Osborn explained they wanted the work to be related to the job they were hired to do. The City agreed and would proVide language to define what the supervisor cannot do, i.e. T"he City cannot assign. . . ." The parties agreed that was acceptable. Article 33 - Union Time Pool. The Union handout dated July 11, 2007 was discussed. The City caucused at 10:09 a.m. The meeting reconvened at 10:12 a.m. The City's position was they were not looking to lose any more productive time on employee's City work to Union activity. It was a fiscal responsibility issue from the City's perspective and Attorney Cherof discussed in light of the current fiscal situation, the City Manager worked very hard to keep the number of positions that had to be 5 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Blue Collar Boynton Beach, Florida August 16, 2007 eliminated to a minimum. He advised that as a result there are very few employees impacted. The City suggested maintaining the status quo for this year. Mr. Osborn distributed a flyer that showed the Firefighters Union logo for a Firefighter activity. He explained that was what the Blue Collar Union was trying to do. Attorney Cherof explained the City did not want to subsidize it. Ms. Goebelt explained that at the Labor Management Group, the decision was to distribute information as a joint effort to inform employees about what they were doing. She clarified that it was working in concert with the two groups. Mr. Boyen explained it did not always pertain to union activity. They were trying to recruit individuals to work with Cityies in that regard. He explained many of those activities take place during working hours. They did not have the ability to retain a lobbyist and they use people. He explained they need people to do that and needed to get employees off for the time needed. He wanted to ensure those employees could return to their jobs. Attorney Cherof explained all people need to make those kinds of choices in their careers and he did not see why the City should underwrite the cost of their risk. Mr. Boyen explained they wanted to be able to show cooperation between the City and the Union and employees could move on. Mr. Boyens wanted the ability to allow people to take off for union activity or to pursue other interests; he thought the provision would enhance the City. The City contended the job provided for unusually good job security, wages and benefits what general publiC gets that exceeds. They wanted employees, if they committed to 40 hours of work a week to perform 40 hours per week. Mr. Boyens explained this was only giving employees the opportunity to come back. Mr. Roberts pointed out if military personnel are called, the City was obligated to give them time off and let them return to their job. Attorney Cherof confirmed that was correct and this was a special status as determined by State and Federal law. Mr. Boyens felt the City could absorb some of the differences. Attorney Cherof thought perhaps they could discuss this next year and recommended the status quo continue. Mr. Boyens advised if the City wanted them to take the matter off the table, they needed some time to discuss this and other matters with people other than those present; particularly the Standby Pay issue as articulated by Mr. Osborne. He summarized the City would rewrite the Task Assignment. There would be no increase in the next contract year of insurance costs. SEIU would look into what they could do. For Hours of Work and Overtime, the City wanted it based on hours actually 6 Meeting Minutes NCF&O Blue Collar Boynton Beach, Florida August 16, 2007 worked. Wages were proposed for 5% of base wages with merit of 2-4% in April of 2008 based on what is in other places. Future dates were tentatively set for September Sept 5, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. If not, the following Wednesday, September 12, 2007 at 9:00 a.m. was also tentatively agreed on. There was no further business to discuss and the meeting was closed at 10:32 a.m. GCJt'vlV - 9-{MQ/v^VrCl/\A Catherine Cherfy-Guberman Recording Secretary 082607 7