Gilroy Police Department’s union contract with the city is set
to expire Wednesday, ending $1.1 million in concessions that have
been in place for a year.
Gilroy Police Department’s union contract with the city is set to expire Wednesday, ending $1.1 million in concessions that have been in place for a year.
The City Council was set to discuss a Police Officers Association proposal – the fifth such received – during a closed session Thursday.
“The ball is in the City Council’s hands at this point,” Madruga said Wednesday. “We gave an offer that we think is reasonable.”
Contract negotiations have been delayed this year as police have been working on making small changes to its memorandum of understanding to reflect changes to its policy and procedures, Madruga said.
“We’ve been into the meat and potatoes of (negotiations) for probably about a month and a half now,” he said.
The nature of the process also is slow-going, he said. The POA meets with city Human Resources Director LeeAnn McPhillips and an attorney, who then informs the council about the union’s offer. The council can then accept it, modify it or reject it. Given the nature of that process, Madruga said he did not know what council members have specifically said about the union’s proposals.
Still, he felt the city and the union were making progress.
“As far as tone, we’ve had some pretty good meetings,” Madruga said. “We’ve made a lot of good headway on a lot of the items.”
Council members this week were vague about dealings with the POA.
Councilman Perry Woodward, who has been openly critical about Gilroy’s firefighters union – International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2805 – had less to say about talks with the police union. While the council voted to publicly announce a status update of negotiations with the fire union back in March, Woodward said he could not say anything about negotiations with the POA without divulging information from closed sessions.
Councilman Bob Dillon anticipated that negotiations with both unions would be difficult, although he remained optimistic.
Not everyone would be happy with the outcome, but every city in the state is dealing with similar fiscal challenges, he said.
“Unions hate to be put in situation where they have to bargain back what they had before,” Dillon said.
The POA’s latest proposal speaks to the upcoming deficit and long-term structural changes, Madruga said.
If the city and the union do not come to an agreement by Wednesday, then the contract signed previous to the concessions would take effect until an agreement is reached or an impasse is declared, in which case the two parties would go into arbitration, Madruga said.
Both parties say they are working hard to reach an agreement.
“It’s a hard nut to crack, but I’m hopeful,” Councilman Dion Bracco said.
