County
screw-ups add to bargaining woes
Walker's HR Department blasted by supervisors,
union
August
28, 2006 -- Blunders by the county Department of
Human Resources and its consultant forced the county to
make a last-minute reduction in its final offer to its largest
union, leaving the union furious with the county and key
county supervisors upset with the department.
Richard
Abelson, executive director of the union, District Council
48 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees, called the county "stupid." County
Supervisor James "Luigi" Schmitt, chair of the
County Board's Personnel Committee, said the county's Human
Resources Department is "incompetent," and County
Supervisor Lynne DeBruin, a committee member, said it was
"appalling" that County Executive Scott Walker
has not moved to improve the department.
"We
don't trust the information we get from HR," Schmitt
said. Instead, the committee is relying on outside attorneys
to assist with negotiations.
The
union, meanwhile, is accusing the county of bargaining in
bad faith, a charge disputed by Schmitt, who said it left
him "incensed."
"I
worked very hard on this," he said. "We didn't
bargain in bad faith....I wish cooler heads would prevail."
The
final contract offer the county submitted to an arbitrator
sets a December 2006 pay raise date for the union, meaning
its members would forego retroactive raises.
Previous
county offers allowed for retro raises.
The
change was needed to keep the potential contract costs in
line with contracts awarded to other county unions, DeBruin
said.
The
county used money saved through health care benefit changes
bargained with other unions to provide raises to those employees.
The
county had planned to pay for retro raises by charging AFSCME
bargaining unit members retroactively for the increased
health insurance premiums and co-pays that other bargaining
units accepted. That idea crashed when human resources consultant
WPS, after months of telling the county it could provide
the data, decided it could not reliably estimate retro health
benefit costs at a price the county was willing to pay.
The
union cannot expect to get a retro raise without sharing
the increased health costs that other unions accepted, Schmitt
said.
"Do
they think they can have their cake and eat it, too?"
Schmitt said. "We don't have a lot of money to play
with."
Abelson
said the county had another reason to try to hold down contract
costs -- it undercounted the actual number of health plans
held by county employees by 300 to 350, a mistake he said
could mean up to $7 million more than anticipated.
"The
county is stupid and they do stupid things," Abelson
said.
DeBruin,
though, said it was unclear whether the plans were undercounted
and by how many.
The
union also says the county delayed negotiations, but Schmitt
said a contract agreement could have been reached if the
union had agreed to wait until the next pact to continue
to work for a county-funded wellness plan.
Sick
leave payout also was a bargaining sticking point, Abelson
said.
Both
Schmitt and DeBruin clearly were unhappy with the job the
county's Human Resources Department did. Schmitt said the
department's weaknesses were common knowledge.
"There's
very little confidence by the Personnel Committee in this
administration's ability to professionally and competently
handle labor negotiations," DeBruin said.
While the pension scandal earlier in the decade was more
expensive, the HR blunders during the AFRSCME negotiations
are the most serious she has seen in several years, DeBruin
said.
The
problems that existed in the department under former County
Executive Tom Ament "continue to exist as much or more
than under the Ament Administration," DeBruin said.
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