While the suggestion will not sit well with representatives of either the city or the union who have to sputter and swallow hard through difficult negotiations, it seems fair that both ought to have declared this an extraordinary time and agreed to short-term contracts with no big raises or concessions until the economy irons itself out.
Anyone who has been close to budget negotiations knows how painful they can be. They generally start with the two sides very far apart, as they both play give and take — giving what they didn't want anyway and taking what little bits that are offered. Once the chaff has been winnowed away in the talks, the two sides get down to the business they actually got together for. That almost invariably involves the size of raises and the give-backs the employer will demand as offsets.
In the case of the city and its Police Department union, the city wanted the union members to begin paying some of their health-care premiums; the union wanted big-enough raises to pay those premium percentages and still realize a gain.
Mayor Donald Kasprzak had made the health-care co-payments one of his missions. The taxpayers have been footing the entire bill, and the way those costs have escalated in recent years, it is now plainly unaffordable. While this has been going on in government, people who work for private businesses have had to pay higher and higher percentages of their own health-care coverage.
Compounding the city-union situation is the fact that people in private businesses have also had to forgo raises altogether. Many have lost their jobs, as business and industry have to operate at the mercy of the bottom line. Taxpayers seem to have less clout than corporate stockholders.
So, when the story ran in the paper and in our online edition detailing the four-year contract with annual raises of 3.9 percent and employee contributions to health care of 3.75 percent, comments on the story elicited little approval from readers.
They wondered how the city could justify a four-year raise of almost 16 percent, even with insurance contributions of 15 percent.
In the end, the numbers may bear the city out on this one. Getting an insurance concession will set the standard for other union negotiations, as well as future increases in the employee share. Nevertheless, it's hard to overlook the 15.6-percent raise. Even the mayor admitted it appears "generous."
It seems as if everyone would have been better served to postpone talks on a long-term contract and agree to a shorter-term contract with small changes truly reflecting what's going on in the economy. It's impossible, at this point, to see four years into the future and know whether the negotiated figures are realistic for either the taxpayers or the union.
No one wants to face more-frequent contract negotiations than necessary, and we hope both sides turn out to be satisfied. But it's a hope with little basis in fact, at this point.
Opinion
January 26, 2010
EDITORIAL: Tough times to negotiate long-term contract
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Cheers and Jeers: Feb. 13, 2012
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