Nutter To Freeze Pay Increases for City Workers
Mayor Nutter is today freezing salary increases, including pay step increases or longevity increases, for union workers and non-represented civil service employees.
Nutter To Freeze Pay Increases for City Workers
Catherine Lucey
Mayor Nutter is today freezing salary increases, including pay step increases or longevity increases, for union workers and non-represented civil service employees.
The move – which the city said could save about $80 million* over five years if it stays in place – comes a week after contracts expired for the city’s four municipal unions. While the city is legally required to maintain the “status quo” of employee compensation during negotiation, the state Supreme Court has ruled that status quo does not include pay increases.
“If you got it, you got it and if you didn’t you didn’t,” said Managing Director Camille Barnett this afternoon. She said the administration was not making a negotiating move, but rather trying to achieve much-needed savings.
Workers were notified of the move through a mass email. Barnett said the city was not in a financial position to continue paying pay increases. The city has said they need to get $125 million in savings from union contracts over the next four years. The city’s contract proposals to the four unions include no salary increases of any kind.
Under civil service rules, employees are hired in a pay range with four or five increasing salaries, or steps. Workers typically move up one step each year until they hit the maximum pay in their range. Some union workers are also awarded a differing amount of “longevity pay,” a salary bump after they hit a certain amount of service – like 10 or 20 years.
The city today said that any future step increases or longevity increases would be determined by contract negotiations for the almost 20,000 union-represented employees. For the 870 non-represented civil service employees, Mayor Nutter will dictate when the city can afford to start paying salary increases again.
* The Nutter administration earlier said the savings would be about $49 million over five years, which we originally reported. They later amended that number to $80 million.
Comment removed.
President O'Bama and Mayor Nutter are both victims of their predecessors. Their planned escape routes could not differ more however. While President O'Bama feels he can spend his way out of the crisis, Mayor Nutter has chosen the more sensible route; save, trim, and prioritize. This is not popular, but some of America's greatest leaders became so because they made the decisions others were too afraid to make. I do agree with earlier posts that City Council should be a part of this, in fact, they should be clammering to do so in the public eye...that sort of leadership would go a long way (remember that scene in Glory, when Col. Shaw ripped up his monthly stipend, in support of his soldiers?) Mayor Nutter's leadership has one flaw that I see. He is guilty of being too diplomatic. He is attempting to hold everyone accountable. The truth is, some city employees, divisions, and services are more important than others. I am glad he closed some of the pools. Although they create a great deal of fun, education and respite for the masses, they are not a nescessity. They are a huge waste of resources, i.e., salary, water, and insurance fees. The effect this budget crisis should have is on schools, but not in the matter that you think. We should see a surge in the amount of retention in public schools. In this economy, you need to have as much training as possible. You need to be a dynamic candidate. Mayor Nutter's influence will not be revealed for at least 4 years. I hope he can continue to make such difficult choices, and I hope the city sees what he is attempting to do for it, not to it!— history
discuss this and other topics on speakphilly.com- The city workers get two increase then. The one that's in the contract and one on their anniversary? I want to work for the city. We only get raises once a year where I work, and a small increase at that.— The_Unknown-Poster
- hey managing director camille barnett how about u put your money where your mouth is?? If you really care abaout taxpayers give back the 275,000 you stole fro dc ?donate it to the pools nutter shut down and oh not to mention you only worked one year for that isnt this country great that had to abide by your contract but if its not you you dont want to abide with the unions contract god bless this great land when on one hand you can rob the taxpayers but on the other you want to save them money.Oh alos give back the 50000 u got for moving expenses that will open alot of pools— cityslicker
- Please tell me you idiots that agree with nutter and the doctor are are not from the city u have to be transplant suburbanites that know what we need.We have been through the good,the bad and the ugly with this great city for many years and who always are the ones that sacrafice.The city worker.we work for way less pay than the average the trade off was job security and benifits well the transplant doctor found a way to circumvent the contract and have laid off there was a no lay off claus in our contract,now you found another way while we try and work without a contract you start throwing salt on the wounds.Go back to 1992 when our cute rendell begged for help.did the citizens step up to the plate only the city workers did and we got nothing back we gave up.Well guess what we are not giving up anything and you will surpised how we stick together on this contract.The big RAT will find its way to specific venues.Playing at a movie near you !!!!— cityslicker
- Cleanupphilly check your facts. There are state laws that cover labor relations for municipal employees. When a contract expires, the city does not become an employee at will. The terms of the expired contract remain in place until a new one is negotiated by both parties.— Valley Twin
- History, your analysis is flawed. First of all, Obama's plan is vastly different from the Mayor's because Obama is allowed to run a deficit into the trillions of dollars. Nutter on the other hand is constrained by the law requiring him to present a balanced budget. Second, Nutter is not being diplomatic. As usual, he is picking the low-hanging fruit. Rather than fire some of the redundant, overpaid academics he's hired (along with their expensive staffs)he's actually maintained their pay (that cut they took last year has been replaced by their COLAs this year - the same one's he's asking city employees to forgo). He's also played a giant shell game with programs he wants, taking them out from under his office and either putting them somewhere else or making them independent. Then he brags about cutting his own budget and telling people to follow his example and tighten their belts. He's already been stonewalled by the other organizations he's attacked - Council and the BRT, but over which he has no control whatsoever. His pedantic bleating was correctly ignored - while there may be some meat to the call to reform these organizations, his knee-jerk hyperbolic attacks are not productive, nor are they "diplomatic." Nutter should have sat down with the Unions – before telling them it was his way or the highway – explained the situation and asked them to come up with an offer that everyone could live with. He’s completely jumped the shark by freezing salaries, and now negotiations are going to be much more difficult.— WPhilly Watcher
- I think many would agree that unions were indeed instrumental in building this country, but the conditions/environments of the past are certainly not prevalent today. I think what some are saying here is that unions today are not nearly as necessary as they were years ago when there were a lot less govt. regulations and protection.— Hatters88
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David Gambacorta spent a small eternity writing about cops, drug dealers and serial killers. Now he’s writing about power and politics – which sometimes reminds him of the old crime beat. He joined the Daily News in 2005. And yes, he knows you’re not quite sure how to pronounce his last name. E-mail tips to gambacd@phillynews.com
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Jan Ransom, a native New Yorker, joined the Daily News in 2010 after graduating from Howard University. She has since written about the difficulty of filing police complaints, tax deadbeats and life after violent home invasions. She joined the Daily News City Hall Bureau in 2011 and has plunged headfirst into reporting on administration budget battles and City Council shenanigans. E-mail tips to ransomj@phillynews.com
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Sean Collins Walsh is from Bucks County and went to Northwestern University. He joined the Daily News copy desk in 2012 and now covers the Nutter administration. Before that, he interned at papers including The New York Times, The Dallas Morning News and The Seattle Times. E-mail tips to walshSE@phillynews.com
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