You're going to be hearing a lot about the ongoing talks between the Nutter administration and the city's four major municipal worker unions.
It's contract time again.
That magical time that happens every three or four years when the mayor and his representatives sit across the table from folks representing your local cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, social workers and city lawyers, and try to hammer out a deal for raises, benefits and pensions.
Local cops and firefighters are prohibited by law from going on strike and most of the other folks in city government perform functions that, let's face it, most of us wouldn't miss if they didn't happen for a couple weeks. So it's the sanitation workers who are the real foot soldiers in this process because NO ONE likes to have their trash pile up for three or four weeks, nor does anyone enjoy loading it into their own cars and driving it to the dump.
Fortunately, this round of contract negotiations has been relatively free of garbage pile threats. In fact, it's been relatively free of anyone saying anything about how the negotiations are going.
So in place of the mayor or representatives from either side "talking tough" in the media, you may actually get some thoughtful pieces about the process like this piece by WHYY's Susan Phillips.
Most importantly (talk about burying the lede!) It's Our Money offers you this Citizen's Guide to City Contracts. It's an in-depth look at the three major issues of this year's negotiations - wages, health benefits and pensions - with commentary from It's Our Money informed by several recent studies about the state of city finances AND input from Thomas Paine Cronin, former DC 47 chief. Cronin provides the unions' points of view on these issues having been part of the negotiating team for previous contracts.
Feel free to use this thread to provide your own ongoing commentary of the coverage of the negotiations or the contracts themselves.
Comments (12)
It's not unfair to expect city union workers to pay a co-pay for health care like the rest of us. Period.
Posted by Anonymous | June 23, 2008 7:22 PM
If the unions won't compromise, then the mayor will simply be forced to hire outside contracting firms who perform municipal functions. Simple as that.
Posted by Anonymous | June 23, 2008 7:23 PM
As a retired Philadelphia Police Officer 1985 my pension has not increased. Try living on a pension that hasn't changed in 23 years.
Posted by s.sammartino | June 23, 2008 9:09 PM
City workers DO pay a co-pay, and have for years now. Where'd you hear otherwise?
Posted by Anonymous | June 23, 2008 11:53 PM
You say, "Mayor Nutter has set aside $402.9 million for wage/benefit increases; that's basically a 2 percent increase in wages or benefits for all workers over five years. That doesn't seem unreasonable."
Who are you kidding? Just using the figure that you used for the last contract, the city workers received a 9.26% raise over the length of the contract. Over the same time period, inflation rose 10.92%. Workers real buying power actually declined by 1.66%
How can you say that 2% a year over 5 years is reasonable when inflation is currently running at 4.48%?
Didn't City Council raise their wages by whopping amount? They wanted to be among the highest paied City Councils in the nation.
I'm sure that the Pew Foundation and the Newspaper Guild would not settle for 2% over 5 years as bineg "reasonable". Why are city employees always the target?
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June 24, 2008 9:29 AM
Here is a plan: How about making the employees pay a little more towards their healthcare costs (which is not unreasonable), and putting the "city savings" back into their pension fund?
Posted by Dee99999 | November 9, 2008 10:55 AM
The trend is subcontractors, I hope not, but that is the trend. It is and has been going on in city government. That means less civil servants as well. The state of pa will mandate it in the next fiscal budget.
Posted by rmship | January 18, 2009 8:41 AM
City employees & supervisers are way overpaid
when compared to private industry plus benefits are extreamly high considering how they perform their jobs.
Posted by Anonymous | January 23, 2009 10:28 AM
City employees & supervisors are NOT overpaid!
The wages of government employed, unionized workers set a benchmark standard for wages in the private sector.
If Nutter can get away with lowering standards in the highly unionized public sector, businesses can pay their workers even less.
If the wages of government workers are high, the private sector will have to keep their wages higher to compete so people don't go running for the government jobs (the government--city, state, federal--is by the way largest employer in the United States, and in Philadelphia)
What you are seeing in the papers (run by wealthy employers) is a classic strategy known as "divide and conquer." Everywhere people who work for a living are under attack and the more our employers have us at each others' throats the more they can take away our wages, our benefits, and our retirement.
If you work for a living, and want a jobless, powerless, futureless Philadelphia in the years to come, by all means blame other working people for the state of the economy--but if you want to protect good jobs and protect the idea of a city where your kids can find a good-paying job and retire early enough to enjoy it, think twice before you demonize city-workers.
Posted by Anonymous | June 4, 2009 1:15 AM
City workers provide over $50 million in wage taxes. What property taxes do they pay? These employees have no choice but to live in Philadelphia. Lets turn this salary over a couple more times. What do these 22,107 city employees contribute in sales taxes? How much of that $1.3billion is spent in the city's groceries stores? Clothing stores? Other government entities have tried privatizing core services. There may have been a VERY short term gain. Most, inlcuding in PA, have reverted to the civil servant because of command and control (costs/labor) and have spent the earlier gains in reacquiring the infrasttructure (trash trucks, office space) to resume core services.
It is not simple by any means. City employees may pay $200 a month for family health care, a little below the average but significantly higher than comcast which coast $30 per month for the same coverage. One has to assume that the 10 year tax abatement is subsidizing employee health care.
This city administration has the largest and highest paid employees of any previous administration. These are all employees who, with some exceptions, have been hired based on "who they know" and not merit or even the basic civil service exam. BRT is what you get when this occurs.
Posted by anonymous | June 25, 2009 5:33 PM
my husbanb works for the city were do these people get off saying that the average person makes 46,120 a year when he does not make that even with overtime . city council are the highest paid workers and all they do is sit on there ass.
Posted by anonymous | July 1, 2009 8:08 AM
We do pay a co-pay. Get your info straight. If the past corrupt mayors put the money in that they were supposed to, instead of funding all their pet projects, we would not be in this mess. now they want to blame the workers? They all have to be voted out.
Posted by Anonymous | August 26, 2009 6:43 PM