Council members’ varying takes on binding arbitration
effectively saved the police and fire unions from being in jeopardy
of losing their most powerful bargaining chip.
Council members’ varying takes on binding arbitration effectively saved the police and fire unions from being in jeopardy of losing their most powerful bargaining chip.
After two failed motions and a 5-2 vote to not sit down and talk with the Gilroy Police Officers Association and Fire Local 2805 about tweaking the binding arbitration process, the City Council voted 4-3 to take no action. The inaction kicks the political ball fully into the court of the Chamber of Commerce, which requested the council force a ballot measure on repealing binding arbitration in May. Now, the Chamber must decide if it wants to gather enough signatures to force that measure on its own.
Council members Bob Dillon and Cat Tucker and Mayor Al Pinheiro voted against the final motion, signaling their interest to continue reviewing the conflict resolution process that the unions can invoke during impasses. If binding arbitration is invoked, an un-elected third-party arbiter resolves stalled talks between the city and either union, both of which cannot legally strike. The Chamber, bolstered by the support of Pinheiro, a member, has criticized the process as forfeiting the elected council’s financial decision-making about labor contracts to a lawyer.
Police and firefighters see it as their only lifeline, though, and after Monday’s vote, representatives of the POA and Local 2805 wiped their foreheads.
“I’m relieved. It’s just one more thing we don’t have to worry about at this point,” POA President Mitch Madruga said Thursday.
Both public safety unions just emerged from rancorous contract fights that cut wages to save jobs, so sitting down to discuss something as sensitive as binding arbitration so soon would be a waste of time, Council member Cat Tucker said Thursday. While she wants to tweak the process, perhaps by forcing the arbiter to consider budget projections or letting the council have more of a final say, Tucker said she did not support Councilman Peter Arellano’s or Pinheiro’s motions – only one of which was seconded before failing 5-2 – to meet with both unions to discuss modifying the process.
“Something has to happen, and we can’t continue along this way. And I’m a firm believer in the voters’ right to vote, but let’s get real here, (the unions) are not going to agree to anything that’s not going to benefit only them,” Tucker said. “There’s just no point to meet and confer with them right now with so much contention and so much hate. Why pretend?”
No one on the council seconded Councilman Perry Woodward’s motion to meet with only Local 2805 about the council’s intent to place binding arbitration on the ballot. The fire union successfully employed binding arbitration in 2000 and 2005, when an arbiter rewarded the union with raises more than twice what the council proposed, but the police union has never used binding arbitration.
“It’s only logical to start with the union that’s used it,” Woodward said Thursday. “How can you possibly say police have abused binding arbitration since it was approved by voters 20 years ago? They’ve never used it, not even in this most recent and highly contentious salary negotiation. Everybody is on edge and all agitated, and this has all become highly politicized.”
Woodward added that the mayor, in whom the POA unanimously approved a “no confidence” vote last month, and others on the council such as Tucker, who has criticized a separate recall effort aimed at the mayor, as “eager to go after the POA.” Woodward agreed with Tucker, however, when he described low staff morale and a generally “poisonous environment” as unfit for union talks.
“If the mayor and Arellano want to meet with the unions and talk about alternatives to binding arbitration, then go do it, but don’t waste staff time on doing that now,” Woodward said.
Pinheiro, who was in The Azores, Portugal, this week, wrote the following in an e-mail: “I did not support Mr. Woodward’s motion because it was for fire only and I hold both professions as very important to our community and not one over the other.”
Without the council’s mandate, the Chamber must collect 1,800 signatures to force a ballot measure, but Chamber President and CEO Susan Valenta has previously said the chamber – whose 725-plus members include the POA and Local 2805 – is disinclined to canvass neighborhoods for signatures. This is what police and firefighters did in 1988 to force a successful arbitration amendment to the city charter.
Chamber member and local conservative activist Mark Zappa, who owns a local printing company and says he still plans to organize a recall effort against the mayor, supports binding arbitration and complained along with Madruga that neither chamber member was consulted before the 12-member board of directors – which includes former Police Chief Gregg Guisiana – voted unanimously in April to petition the council for a ballot measure vote. Valenta said in a voicemail Thursday that the board will evaluate the council’s decision and may decide to poll its members. She also described a “level of intimidation” emanating from the unions that she said have the ability to run powerful campaigns.
If voters were to rescind binding arbitration, police and firefighters would lose the ability to call in a third arbiter. However, even this is a new privilege for voters. Before one month ago, a state law, SB 440, required binding arbitration for public safety employees throughout the state. The state Court of Appeals struck that law down this year, and the California Supreme Court has declined to review the matter.
While this strips firefighters and cops in most cities of binding arbitration, Gilroy’s public safety unions can still invoke the process because they work in one of the state’s 112 charter cities. Of those cities, at least 22, including Gilroy, have binding arbitration provisions in their voter-approved charters. Placing binding arbitration on the ballot would cost $10,000 in attorneys’ fees and an additional $50,000 to place it on a general election ballot, $75,000 on a primary ballot, or $425,000 for a special stand-alone election that only Gilroyans would vote in.
