4 strikes ... they're out? There are only 6 weeks to go until city union contracts expire.

NEXT STOP, STRIKE?

Now that the contentious budget deal is done, Mayor Nutter's next major hurdle will be negotiating contracts with the city's four major unions.

The contracts expire June 30 and with six weeks to go, rhetoric is heating up. Nutter says that he needs concessions to help balance the budget. Union leaders are pushing back hard. The city may be teetering closer to a strike by nonuniformed workers than it has in more than a decade.

"We continue to prepare for a real bad time," said Pete Matthews, president of AFSCME District Council 33, which represents the city's blue-collar workers. "Could it lead to a strike? Definitely, if it stays on this course."

Last year, Nutter negotiated one-year deals with all four unions, saying that he wanted extra time so that the city could study solutions to rising health-care and pension costs. A health-care committee has not yet released any findings.

With the city battling a fiscal crisis, the stakes are high. Roughly 60 percent of the city's $3.8 billion general fund is dedicated to salaries, benefits and overtime for city workers, most of whom are union-represented.

As part of his budget, which deals with a $1.4 billion five-year shortfall, Nutter eliminated money set aside for raises and is counting on getting $125 million in contract savings over the next five years.

To do that, the city wants workers to pay more for their benefits and agree to work-rule changes. If not, the city will have to make cuts to balance the budget, Nutter said.

"If we don't achieve those savings, then we would have to make cuts in a variety of places or reduce our overall cost, and that would more than likely have some impact on personnel levels," Nutter said.

But union leaders haven't flinched.

"Nutter's plan is to use this economic crisis for negotiations to cut pensions and to hurt our health care," said Brian McBride, president of the Philadelphia Fire Fighters Union, Local 22.

John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said that police officers give enough to the city already, without taking cuts.

"I think we did give concessions last year, in the loss of how many officers?" McNesby said. "We're going to put the best possible case on. We're not going to concede anything."

The police and fire unions can't strike. Contracts for the 10,000 uniformed workers will be determined by arbitration panels. But the roughly 10,000 workers in the two nonuniformed-worker unions can hit the pavement.

Cathy Scott, president of District Council 47, which represents the city's white-collar workers, did not return calls seeking comment.

The last major municipal strike was a 20-day walkout in 1986, when piles of garbage rotted in the July heat. Eventually, Mayor Wilson Goode declared a health emergency and forced employees back to work.

The two nonuniformed unions had their first bargaining session with the city two weeks ago. Police arbitration is set to start this week, and fire arbitration will happen later in the year.

Comcast Executive Vice President David L. Cohen, who served as chief of staff to former Mayor Rendell, said that he expected that these negotiations would be rough.

"I think it's going to be a very tough negotiation," Cohen said. "Any time you try to negotiate what the unions call givebacks, there's a lot of pulling and tugging."

Cohen worked for Rendell during the contentious 1992 negotiations when the city won major concessions from the unions, including a reduction of paid holidays, wage freezes or pay cuts, reduced city contributions to health benefits and an easing of some work rules.

"I don't think what the mayor has proposed is unrealistic," Cohen said of Nutter's demands, noting that in 1992 the city got more than $100 million in annual concessions.

That year, workers dragged out negotiations for months until Rendell gave them his "last, best offer." If they didn't take it, he said, the city would impose the conditions anyway. The move helped force a settlement.

But since then, the state Supreme Court has ruled that public employers can't unilaterally impose contract terms if the employees are still working. So the city must honor the current contracts as long as workers stay on the job.

Here's a look at the key issues in the contract talks:

Pensions

This is a biggie.

Last year, the city spent $430 million on the city's troubled pension fund, and those costs continue to grow. The city hopes to get state approval to slow payments into the fund, which would save money.

Nutter is asking a state pension board to declare the city fund "severely distressed," which would legally require the city to reduce the cost of the pension plan.

The city then would ask vested employees to pay in more for their pensions, and also would start a different retirement-savings plan for newly hired workers, with a reduced pension benefit coupled with a 401(k) plan.

Union leaders have said that they oppose the plan for new workers.

Health care

The city has made it clear that it wants savings on health benefits.

Health care is provided for most city workers by union-controlled plans into which the city pays - $1,270 per month for each firefighter, $1,165 per cop and $965 for each member of the nonuniformed unions.

Contract proposals to the unions so far have stated that the city is seeking cost savings on health care, but have been vague on exactly how. Higher co-pays or employee contributions, as well as changes to the plans, are among the possibilities.

According to a 2006 study by the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, which oversees the city budget, Philadelphia pays one of the highest per-head health-care costs of any major city.

Other cities manage benefits from a central office. In 1992, Rendell lobbied for such a move, getting proposals from managed-care firms to provide medical, dental, optical and prescription coverage for city workers. The city proposed putting all workers in a single plan, and the rates proposed by the companies were substantially lower than the monthly fees the city was paying to union-managed health plans.

Ultimately, the unions decided to keep control of their funds and accepted reduced contributions from the city.

This year, there has been little talk of merging the plans. Union leaders argue that putting workers on a single plan would not save much money.

Work rules

Often discussed less than benefits, work rules are another area from which the city wants to wring savings.

The city wants to reduce the number of paid holidays to nine annually. Currently, cops and firefighters get 12 paid holidays, including their birthdays. Nonuniformed workers get 11.

Another city goal is to eliminate the rule that cops and firefighters are entitled to take vacation time in the summer, which drives up overtime costs.

Staff writer Dave Davies contributed to this report.