Mayor Nutter freezes salaries as labor talks continue

As labor negotiations limp on, Mayor Nutter yesterday froze salary increases for union workers and non-represented civil service employees.

The move - which the city said could save an estimated $80 million over five years - comes a week after contracts expired for the city's four municipal unions. It would affect two types of raises automatically awarded city workers for time served.

"If you got it, you got it and if you didn't you didn't," said Managing Director Camille Barnett, who insisted that the administration was not making a negotiating play, but rather trying to achieve much-needed savings.

The city has never taken such a step, but officials say that a state Supreme Court ruling supports the move.

The ruling says that the city is legally required to maintain the "status quo" of employee compensation after a contract has expired if negotiations continue. But the court stipulates that the status quo does not include pay increases.

Workers were notified of the decision through a mass e-mail yesterday.

Whether such a freeze will remain in place for the 20,000 unionized workers will ultimately be determined by contract negotiations. The city said that as part of its effort to find $125 million in contract savings over five years, city negotiators were seeking new contracts with no raises of any kind.

Nutter will dictate when to change the pay-increase policy for the city's 870 non-represented civil service employees.

Union leaders yesterday slammed the city's decision, saying they would fight back.

"This is not a positive development for contract negotiations," said Cathy Scott, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees District Council 47, which represents the city's white-collar workers. "It's never been done before, not even in 1992. We think it's an insult to city employees who just did a great job on Welcome America."

In 1992 the city faced a financial crisis during which then-Mayor Ed Rendell forced major concessions from the unions.

Scott said DC 47 would be filing a class-action grievance. Scott said she believes "there are provisions in our contract that go beyond the [state] Supreme Court ruling."

John McNesby, president of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, and Bill Gault, president of the Philadelphia Fire Fighters Union, said they also were reviewing their legal options.

"Our members are due that money and they deserve that money," McNesby said. "Whatever needs to be done, we'll do on behalf of our members."

Negotiations with DC 47 and blue-collar union AFSCME DC 33 are supposed to continue later this week. The police and fire contracts are settled through arbitration. That process has started for police and will kick off for fire in September. *