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Contract Negotiations with SEIU 585
Posted 2-27-2002
You have probably been reading recently about the county's contract
negotiations with Service Employees International Union Local 585 (SEIU
585). The negotiations are important to county government because SEIU is
our biggest union and represents over 1,000 employees. Yet, these
negotiations represent only a piece of the complex network of labor
negotiations that the county conducts. Labor negotiations are one of the
most challenging aspects of the county commissioners' jobs because it is
difficult to balance our obligations to treat county employees fairly, while
ensuring we responsibly manage the county's budget.
Currently, there are eight
separate bargaining units with whom we must negotiate. SEIU 585 is the
biggest. The United Mine Workers represents the corrections officers at our
county jail. Teamsters Local 30 represents the county park police. Teamsters
Local 205 represents caseworkers in the Children's Bureau and our Mental
Health and Mental Retardation Office. The county detectives are an
independent bargaining group. Also, our adult and juvenile probation
officers have an independent bargaining unit.
Our prison counselors are a
bargaining unit of four people represented by Teamsters Local 205. Most
recently, the Assistant District Attorneys and Assistant Public Defenders
organized into a bargaining unit.
Only SEIU and the caseworkers
can even strike. That may sound favorable for the county, but it isn't.
Every other bargaining unit is entitled to binding arbitration. So in
negotiations, they are never too willing to compromise because it is worth
the chance to let an independent arbitrator decide the outcome. Within SEIU,
none of the employees that serve the courts can actually strike. So, while
those court employees could vote for a strike, it would only be their union
brothers and sisters that could walk out.
If the situation appears to
be complicated, it clearly is. We are always in some form of negotiations
with some bargaining unit. Most times, we use an outside negotiator to
represent the county. This time, for the SEIU negotiations, we decided to
use our own in-house negotiator. Chuck Dominick, our human resource director
who has negotiated contracts in previous jobs before his county service, is
doing a good job in a tough situation.
Actually, we are pretty much
where we expected in these SEIU negotiations. Because of internal problems
in SEIU Local 585, they are in trusteeship and have two people who have
never negotiated a contract with Westmoreland County leading their team. As
is often the case, it seems the outside negotiators want to prove their
worth to the local union and have taken a more adversarial position. Most
issues are resolved, but the two biggest, wages and health benefits, remain
unresolved.
There is virtually no
opportunity to have uniform wage and benefit packages for our employees.
Because we have various arbitrators deciding many of our wage and benefit
packages, it is their personal impression of the proposals presented by the
county and the particular union that dictate what we provide to that
bargaining unit. It ultimately creates disparities among groups of employees
and often our management employees feel they get no consideration for
improving their benefit package.
What never seems to be
compared to other groups in the workplace outside of county government is
the very lucrative time off from work for county workers. We have thirteen
paid holidays, employees receive fifteen sick days each year, and they get
two weeks of vacation to start and their third week after three years. The
sick days are very out of sync with the workplace, and they can be
accumulated up to 180 days. It is also a costly item for us in the
twenty-four hour-a-day operations because we have to bring in replacements
to fill in for people calling off sick.
The prospect of eight
different union contracts makes things very challenging for the
commissioners. It is human nature for the employees to want more. But, while
it would be a natural inclination for us to give them what they want so they
will like us, it is not always possible in the larger framework of the
county budget. Public sector employees' wages and benefits should reflect
the wages and benefits of those people paying for them to be there. While
Westmoreland County has people that make more than government employees, we
also have many people working or retired that make less. Also, many people
in our county, working or retired, contribute toward their health insurance.
It is those working people living paycheck to paycheck, or retirement check
to retirement check, that are the ones whose tax dollars pay the bills. So,
we will continue to work to balance fair treatment of our employees with our
responsibility to manage the public's dollars. |
