Minutes 10-22-09
MINUTES OF THE BLUE COLLAR MEETING BETWEEN
THE SEIU FLORIDA PUBLIC SERVICES UNION,
AND THE CITY OF BOYNTON BEACH
HELD IN THE LIBRARY CONFERENCE ROOM A, AT 3:30 P.M.
ON OCTOBER 22, 2009, BOYNTON BEACH, FLORIDA
PRESENT:
For the City of Boynton Beach
For SEIU
Sharyn Goebelt, Human Resources Director
Lori LaVerriere, Assistant City Manager
Marylee Coyle, Assistant Human Resources Director
Tim Howard, Assistant Finance Director
Michael Low, Deputy Director of Utilities
Carl Booth, SEIU
Mike Osborn, SEIU, PSU
Don Roberts, SEIU, PSU
Sharyn Goebelt, Human Resources Director, opened the meeting at 3:32 p,m, and explained
the meeting was to resume negotiations with the Blue Collar SEIU members from September
21, 2009 that was taken to a vote on October 6, 2009, The vote was turned down, The City
was willing to hear the issues the Union has and she had a few items she wanted to put on the
record,
Self-introductions were made, Jeff Marks was also present for the Union,
Ms, Goebelt reviewed the ground rules which were reviewed when the initial negotiations
commenced, She indicated there was a follow-up meeting after they had a tentative
agreement, and there was a bit of lack of respect shown at the meeting, Ms, Goebelt put on the
record that the parties agreed to treat everyone's comments and questions with respect She
announced the City reserved the right to change some articles that the City wanted to know
what articles in question they would like the City to revisit, since the Union did not accept the
provisions,
Mr Booth reported there were five issues that arose during ratification,
The first issue was Article 18, The Union could not get past what the City Commission did with
the Police and Fire Departments effective next year regarding their increase,
The next issue was the Holidays, Article 30, The Union took exception to the time and a half
and the ten hours versus eight hours issue, There was discussion about the employees who
work and actually get paid 10 hours and the time and a half if you actually work the holiday,
The Union wanted to keep the time and one half, and for the employees who work four tens,
they get 10 hours if they work the Holiday, If there are 11 holidays, they want 110 hours as
opposed to 88 hours.
1
Meeting Minutes
Blue Collar Negotiation Session
Boynton Beach, FL
October 22, 2009
Article 36, This related to changing the Recall and Seniority, The biggest issue there was the
severance, The Article was changed, The layoff procedure was changed by Seniority, The
City Manager would receive information from the Director about the order of a layoff and there
was quite a bit of the old language that was struck, The new language was inserted to give the
City Manager more flexibility within that They were not completely opposed to the change
other than they would like to put language back in about the length of severance time paid for
someone who is laid off, The Union would like two weeks severance, Ms. Goebelt inquired if
the only thing the Union wanted to add to what was TA'd on was the two-week severance, Mr
Osborne explained the biggest issue the employees wanted was at least two weeks severance
and if they were laid off, the two weeks could hold them over until they could find a job or start
collecting unemployment
Article 49, Longevity, The Union wanted language changed to suspend longevity for a year as
opposed to doing away with it altogether,
Ms, Goebelt explained the two articles the City would like to change was the Insurance, Article
41, The City would like to put back on the table the City would pay 75% of the total medical
dental and vision insurance premium,
Article 54, the City wanted to add, "This agreement and all monetary benefit adjustments
provided herein shall be effective October 1, 2009, and remain in full force and effect until
September 30, 2010, Any monetary Unit to a Bargaining Unit member under the Status Quo,
which exists between October 1, 2009 and the implementation date of this agreement, which is
inconsistent with the new benefit laws established in this agreement, will be recouped by the
City by payroll reduction," The rest of the article stayed the same,
The City caucused at 1:41 p,m,
The meeting reconvened at 2:13 p,m,
Ms, Goebelt inquired if the Union discussed the two articles the City put on the table, The Union
did not like either proposal. Ms, Goebelt explained the City reviewed the articles and would
agree to change the Longevity Article 49, to say, "The foregoing benefit adjustment article is
suspended for fiscal year 2009/2010,"
The City could not agree to any other changes, Mr Booth acknowledged the comment and
advised they were then at an impasse,
The meeting closed at 2:15 p,m,
CiCtiliufJUL (110 j A 11/
Catherine Cherry 1'-V~1
Recording Secretary
(Transcribed from one recording)
2