District Council 47, which represents 3,400 white-collar city workers, agreed this afternoon to a one-year contract.

That makes Mayor Nutter three for four in city union negotiations.  District Council 33, which represents 9,400 blue-collar workers, agreed to a one-year deal on July 24.  The Fraternal Order of Police accepted a one-year deal from the city for its 6,800 members on July 10.  The firefighters' union, with 2,300 members, will start binding arbitration with the city on Monday.

DC 47 got the same deal as DC 33, which accepted a $1,100 signing bonus last month with no raises while the city agreed to continue paying $976 a month for each member's heath care plan.  The FOP deal included a 3.5 percent raise but the city cut its health care payments from $1,303 a month for each member to $1,165.

All three unions have agreed to participate in a joint city-health care committee that will examine how to maintain benefits while bringing down costs. Nutter, who described the contracts as "historic" and "unprecedented" said the one-year deals give him the time to examine ballooning health care costs.

"You don't have to be Alan Greenspan to know we have to do something about this," he said.

DC 47 president Cathy Scott last month called on Nutter to use the FOP contract as a model for all of the city's unions.  Scott said her members would accept a one-year deal with a 3.5 percent raise and $1,165 monthly payments for health care.  They didn't get those terms.

Scott today said: "while we do not embrace this contract, we accept this contract." She later said that the membership want a percentage raise and that they were originally looking for a two-year contract.

The health care committee has caused wide-spread speculation that Nutter may use the next year to push for a consolidation of the four union health-care plans into one city-run program. Former mayors John Street and Ed Rendell also tried to pull that off in their first union negotiations but failed.  The unions, while agreeing to participate in the committee, oppose consolidating health care plans.