Taveras takes hard line on contracts with unions

Having wrung significant wage and benefit concessions from three of the city’s four major labor unions in efforts to close a $110 million budget gap, Providence Mayor Angel Taveras faces his biggest challenge negotiating with the 2,000-member Providence Teachers Union.
Taveras is expected to continue touting a hard line when it comes to raises and costly benefits in negotiations that are ongoing.
“Mayor Taveras has made clear since he delivered his budget address in April that he would call on everyone to share in the sacrifice required to put Providence back on firm financial footing,” spokesman David Ortiz said in a recent email to Providence Business News.
Faced with a $28 million deficit in the school budget, Ortiz said, the Taveras administration “has had to make difficult decisions such as closing schools.”
If the last few months are any indication, work on the teachers’ pact will not necessarily proceed smoothly.
The Taveras administration made national news when the school board at City Hall’s prompting sent termination notices to all 1,936 teachers in February, a move that led hundreds of union members to protest in a City Hall rally.
Since then, most of those teachers have been rehired, but last month approximately 100 received final termination notices via email, including about 70 who worked at four schools that were closed. At the same time, there are 90 job vacancies in the school system and Mayor Taveras urged school officials to hire from within to fill those positions.
Steve Smith, president of the union, blamed in part the R.I. Department of Education for allowing the city to ignore seniority when hiring and firing. The union, Local 958 of the American Federation of Teachers, appealed the seniority issue June 23 to the R.I. Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education. Smith and Paul Vorro, executive director of the union, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment. The current contract expires Aug. 31 of this year.
In other contract agreements:
&#8226 The nearly 800 employees represented by the city’s largest union, Local 1033 of the Laborers International Union of North America, had their salaries cut July 1, gave up raises until at least fiscal 2014 and made many other significant concessions in their new labor agreements. The local represents approximately 780 employees in every city department.
Split into two parts for fiscal 2011 and fiscal years 2012-15, the pacts are scheduled to save the city approximately $23 million during the next four years, including $2.2 million in immediate cuts and $4.6 million in fiscal 2012, which started July 1, the mayor’s office said.
As part of the new contract, workers took a 1 percent pay cut as of July 1, 2011, and waived 1 percent pay raises scheduled to take effect Jan. 1, 2011, a 2 percent increase as of July 1, 2011, and a 1 percent increase due Jan. 1, 2012.
In other givebacks, the new contract increases health insurance copays by 16.5 percent, 18 percent and 20 percent of base wages in fiscal years 2012, 2014 and 2015, respectively, for employees earning more than $50,000 a year.
Incentives that total $6,500 over the next three years are available for 122 eligible workers, depending on age and length of service, who retire between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 of this year. Henceforth, new hires in the next three fiscal years will be compensated at 15 percent below the current wage rate and only 30 percent of the vacancies created by early retirements will be filled. The contract has been ratified by members and the City Council. &#8226 The city reached agreement with Local 799 of the International Association of Firefighters June 20 on a five-year contract that would save the city $27 million during the next five years and $5.7 million in fiscal 2012, which began July 1.
The mayor’s office has said the new contract would see the local’s 400 members give up a 3 percent pay raise due June 30, saving the city $1 million.
Minimum-manning changes saw the number of firefighters who must be on duty at all times reduced from 92 to 90, allowing the city to save on overtime, operations and personnel costs.
Health care copays increase each year to $1,170 for single and $2,340 for family coverage by fiscal year 2016.
New recruits will have to work five years, rather than the current two years, to reach the top salary step, will be eligible for pensions after 25 years rather than the current 20 years and will contribute 9 percent of wages to their pensions, versus the current 8 percent rate.
Paid vacation time was reduced by one week, allowing the city to save on overtime needed to cover shift vacancies.
&#8226 The city on June 24 announced a tentative agreement with the police union, Lodge 3 of the Fraternal Order of Police with about 400 members, intended to avoid 78 threatened layoffs and save approximately $6 million in the 2012 fiscal year. Police have been without a contract since 2007.
Under the new agreement, police would agree to go six years without pay raises, from fiscal 2007 to fiscal 2013, with a 4 percent salary hike scheduled in fiscal 2014.
A retirement incentive would encourage 35 to 40 eligible officers to retire this year.
On June 30, the police and firefighters’ unions approved their respective agreements by wide margins. &#8226