storyhill.net, Aug. 28, 2006

County screw-ups add to bargaining woes
Walker's HR Department blasted by supervisors, union

August 28 -- 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.