Mayor Nutter today had some strong words for the city’s unionized workers, as contracts are set to expire at the end of June.
“Every citizen in Philadelphia understands that all of us – including public employees – will have to make some amount of sacrifice in the current economic environment,” Nutter said. “It is certainly unreasonable for anyone to think that public employees would somehow not have to make the same kind of sacrifice that citizens are making every day in terms of service levels, in terms of higher fees, in terms of a proposed increase in taxes.”
Contracts for the city's four municipal unions expire on June 30. The city has said they need to reduce employee expenses to balance the budget. Their opening offers to blue collar union AFSCME District Council 33 and the city's white-collar union, District Council 47 included a four-year wage freeze and major concessions in pension contributions and work rules, as well as a major restructuring of health-benefit plans.
So far, the unions haven't budged. The city hasn't met with DC 33 or DC 47 in over a month. And last week, DC 33 started airing radio ads, calling for a fair contract. Both DC 33 and DC 47 have a rally scheduled for Thursday.
Contracts for the city's 10,000 uniformed workers - who cannot strike - are settled through arbitration. That process started for police last month and is scheduled for firefighters later this year.
UPDATE: This rhetoric is definitely heating up. We just spoke with DC 33 President Pete Matthews who said that Nutter is ignoring the concessions his union has already made, like agreeing to one-year contracts last year or working with the city as they eliminated jobs earlier this year. "I think it was ridiculous of him to make a statement like that," Matthews said.
Posted by Catherine Lucey @ 2:35 PM
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21 comments
hizzoner needs to go to the mattresses against the unions
The average City taxpayer ( note-- TAXPAYER---not intended to include those living off of government payments or pensions) has seen their real wages drop, and their benefits decrease-if they've been lucky, and kept their job---- during the last 4 years. Now it is time for the City's unionized workers to see their wages DECREASE, and their benefits become aligned with the private sector. If they don't like it, let them quit. There will be 20 candidates for each job, after three days notice. If they want to strike, let them, and play it as hard line as US labor laws permit.
Interesting. Salaries in the Mayor's office alone are reported to be higher than ever before even with a self impossed reduction. If unions have to sacrifice there should be the same consessions across the board for health benefits and pay for political appointees as well. Just a thhought.
All City political appointees making over 50K/year, have had to take 5 days unpaid, and over 100K/year, 10 days unpaid. When you get high enough, people often can't actually take the time off, so it is just a 5 or 10% pay cut. That sounds about right for the union workers....
Hey Nutter, aren't city employees citizens as well (residency requirment)? Or do you think of us simply as serfs on the plantation? We also make the same kind of sacrifice that citizens are making every day in terms of service levels, in terms of higher fees, in terms of a proposed increase in taxes. Let's see you lead by example by cutting your and city council's bloated, overpaid staff. Funny thing that as the city's population has diminished and departments have been cut, the mayor's and city council's staff and budget have grown exponetially.
sounds like the unions goons have enough $$ if they are running ads.
Unions destroy everything they touch.
Comment removed.
The people in the mayor's office are not like the average row office white collar city employee. I called a city office today and got hung up on about a dozen times by someone who could not figure out how to transfer a call. Who are we kidding? The mayor's staff was hired from a nationally competitive process, the city from having helped Uncle Joe rig elections ten years ago. If there was actual competitive hiring, I'd be more inclined to see city employees protected.
I love all these city employees are in fact online. Go BACK TO WORK instead of posting how you hate someone who got competitively hired to do a job you don't have the qualifications for.
City union employees have crazy benefits. Free legal representation for one, for divorces, separation, custody, juvenile matters, and the like. That's NUTS. Who has such a thing? What employer offers that? The old timers don't pay co-pays for prescriptions or doctor visits. That's CRAZY. There's no competitive hiring, and no competitive salary pressure from the market place. That hurts the taxpayer. We in the city have to change. It's time. If you strike, fine. Nutter should absolutely hire outside contractors to do the work. I bet they all will all know how to transfer a call.
Why do I have to call the city up and beg people to do their job, then call my elected rep and beg them to get on these dead dogs who've already hit rigor mortis? This is not government. It doesn't make me want to vote for my Council rep for "helping" me, it makes me want to kill my Council rep for not fixing this. WAKE UP MORONS. Philly non-uniformed employees, especially in the row offices, are the WORST, like STALIN or the USSR or KAFKA. They can't even realize how bad they are, that's how bad they are. If they strike, who would notice? If they came off their strike, would they start answering their phones again? I think we should egg the the union people at this rally. For every time you called the city and got the run around, one egg. There are not enough chickens.
Once I city employee told me they could not help me until they finished their breakfast, at their desk. It was pancakes, syrup, extra syrup, bacon, sausage, eggs, and for the healthy finish, oatmeal. It took them about an hour. I told them that they need to eat before they get to work and they said they were allowed to "snack at their desk." I said that snack would kill a hippo. The smell around them made waiting impossible. I had to get back in line to get another person rather than risk exposure to a fresh round of bodily expulsions.
I've had city employees in the Dept. of Revenue that is was "not their job" to make sure that people paid their property taxes. I asked her what her job was then, exactly. She said she didn't have to "justify" herself to me. I was speechless, because that is so obviously the job of every employee at Revenue. I've had city employees unable to answer simple questions that you can find on their agency's website. Or give wrong answers and swear they are sure they are right, and give you a supervisor to talk to who doesn't know either, or who confirms that their answer was wrong, and then gives you another different wrong answer. All true. Then I've said, "that's not what your own website says." And they were like, "Really?" and I said, "Have you read the website for this agency?" and they've been honest, and said, "No." Then there was the time a city employee seemed amazed that I had information that you could look up using her own agency's website, and told me that this public information, available on her own agency's website was "confidential" and so I "shouldn't have been able" to look up the info about a property I presented to her to follow up on. I said, "then how is it on your website?" She looked alarmed. I recently asked a member of City Council's staff what the criteria was in the city for the city certifying a property for property tax collection, and this expert on city foreclosure told me that she "didn't know." In any other city I've lived in, each of these instances would have been grounds for dismissal.
How long is Philly going to operate like this? How long are Philly unions for city employees going to be allowed to reward gross incompetence? White collar city employees without the basic skills to do the job, like phone skills, transferring calls, knowing who is in or not, computer skills, typing, spelling -- how long do we have to pay the worst of the worst top dollar benefits for the worst quality government in the modern US?
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