Negotiators for City Hall and the city’s biggest labor union
have agreed to bring in a mediator to hammer out a new contract for
public employees.
Gilroy – Negotiators for City Hall and the city’s biggest labor union have agreed to bring in a mediator to hammer out a new contract for public employees.
City Council voted last week to request a “facilitator” from the California Department of Industrial Relations to assist in negotiating a labor settlement with the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME #101) a group representing 124 city employees. Officials said the move does not represent a breakdown in talks.
City Administrator Jay Baksa said “both sides are digging in, and the (city) council said we’re more than open to work this out with you through mediation. It’s good news. It keeps the dialogue going.”
The current four-year labor contract, known as a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), officially expired at the end of June but remains in effect until a new contract is signed. The MOU spells out salary ranges, benefits, and working conditions for custodians, engineers, secretaries and other city employees. The union spans all city departments but does not include department heads, or sworn members of the fire and police departments.
Gilroy Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips and AFSCME president Rodger Maggio declined to characterize the status of negotiations. In a conference call, they said both sides mutually agreed to bring in a third party to finish up negotiations.
Maggio said that city and union representatives reached a labor deal without outside help during the last two rounds of bargaining. Both times, he added, negotiations reached into September.
McPhillips pointed out that the use of a third party mediator does not represent an official breakdown in talks, where one or both sides declares impasse and goes through a more formal mediation process.
The AFSCME negotiations take place while city leaders attempt to head off binding arbitration with Fire Local #2805. City officials and the fire union reached impasse in the spring and are scheduled to begin arbitration hearings with an outside arbitrator in January 2006. The dispute-resolution procedure relies on a third party to issue final, binding decisions on the most intractable contract issues.
AFSCME members do not have recourse to binding arbitration option, but, unlike public safety workers, they are not forbidden by state law from going on strike. Long-time city employees said the last strike in Gilroy’s history was a three-day lockout in 1975.
Representatives involved in current negotiations expect to choose a mediator and resume talks within a few weeks.
“We just have to brief our membership on what’s going on before anything else happens,” Maggio said.
