At 1330 on January 12, 2006, the combined bargaining units of the Saint Petersburg Association of Fire Fighters met with the negotiations team from the Human Relations department of the City of St. Petersburg. This meeting was the 27th attempt in this 681 day bargaining period. It was our goal to try and hammer-out a single year contract for the year in arrears (Oct. 1st. 2004 – Oct. 1st. 2005). Present on the SPAFF side of the table were some 40 Firefighters, Firefighter Paramedics, Fire Captains and Fire District Chiefs.As many of you might recall we declared impasse in September of 2005, but were asked by the Mayor to consider not filing the impasse paperwork while his staff “reworked the numbers.” Mind you... there are only so many numbers between 1 and 10 that one can 'rework'. Elections came and went and on November 23rd – the city supposedly having 'new' numbers, met with us for the 26th time. During this outing the city finally offered to move off of their rigidly held position of a 3% general wage increase (GWI) offer, and creatively came up with an additional percentage point, totaling 4% that doesn’t roll-up into our future pay. I might also note - so as not to cause a single typing finger of any city staffer to become calloused at the calculator, that 4% bonus is based on your annual hourly total as it’s written in the contract – NOT ON THE ACTUAL HOURS WORKED FOR THE PREVIOUS YEAR! I call it a bonus because that’s what it is. Ratification ballots were quickly sent out and after the mandatory balloting period, it was obvious that this turd was no Snickers Bar! The ballots were collected and the votes were totaled. A mandate was sent to the city staffers! "We weren't buying it!"Back to our latest attempt. For the sake of brevity, we essentially combined two meetings into one - simultaneously negotiating for both the rank and file as well as that of the supervisors. The meeting was short and two the point! The city’s latest offer as it pertains to the single year in arrears-contract, has the city pulling the 4% no-rollup offer off of the table and replacing it with a whopping 3% GWI for both parties! Lemme’ do the math for you. Some six hundred and eighty one days ago, the city brought 3% to the table. Today – both halves of our bargaining unit were tendered the same 3% offer that lay on the table nearly two years ago! But wait… there’s a new carrot dangling over our collective plates (double entendre???). If you’ll remember, the city drove home the point that if we’d accept their single year 4% no roll-up offer, they’d give us 4, 5 & 5 over the course of a negotiated 3 year contract. Now they’ve upped the ante. They’ve laid 4, 5 & 6 at our feet in an attempt to get us to bite on the same stale 681 day old offer! What's a fella to do?When asked by President Newton if this was the city’s best and final offer, we were told that that was all they were authorized to bring to the table. We immediately countered with a 5% demand for the past year in arrears with all sweat hours worked and all incentive pay counting towards the lump sum check. This shouldn’t be such a big deal for the city. After all, one of the reasons that they refuse to make pensionable all sweat hours over and above the totals currently detailed in the collective bargaining agreement – is due to the mere fact that we supposedly don’t work that many overtime hours and it’s not really a ‘biggie’. Not a biggie unless you’re getting screwed out of time and a half overtime! What a Big League City! Thinking that we might actually salvage something useful from this latest attempt at greed mentality, we had scheduled two consecutive days of ratification information meetings. That won’t be necessary now. This last offer is not a move forward. The city has never once told us that they don’t have the monies available to get us on the road to catching up to those pay and pension benefits already enjoyed by smaller departments. To the contrary – many of you have become familiar with the same old saw, “We don’t feel as though we need to provide that benefit at this time” - so much so, that it has become very easy to believe that there are those employed as power brokers for this city whose job it is to keep their boot on the neck of labor and greet you with a smile!
