FY2004 Negotiations

IAFF FY2004 Contract Negotiations

Conclusion

September 18, 2003 - The Arbitration Panel has concluded its decision and has chosen the IAFF Local 2067 as the victor. The summary of the Brief filed on behalf of the IAFF Local 2067 to the Arbitrator can be viewed here in the "Summary of IAFF Brief" PDF file. The Arbitrators written decision can be viewed here in the "IAFF Arbitration Decision - 2003" PDF file. Also, see below for Negotiation/Arbitration highlights. (Arbitration Sessions were completed on September 9, 2003.) -Total Arbitration Cost: $15,484.03.

Footnote:
September 24, 2003 - Tuesday nights City Council meeting was attended by many local IAFF members in support of the recent Arbitrators ruling showing winning favor in the IAFF's Last Best Offer. The Norman City Council adjourned into Executive Session and returned without taking action to overturn this ruling in favor of implementing a City wide election in attempt to do the same.

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Arbitration

September 9, 2003 - The final day of Arbitration led off with the City of Norman in continuance of their case presenting further testimony from Assistant City Attorney Jeff Bryant who testified further about how the City determines and "estimates" its survey data. In was then rebutted item by item by not only IAFF council, Jim Moore, but the Interest Arbitrator Jim Keesee.

Further testimony was given by two City of Norman Councilmen, Doug Cubberley and Richard Stawicki by the city in hopes of proving a unified approval of changes made to the Health Insurance Plan and in wage adjustments. Cross examination provided that neither member had much insight into how much of a concession was given to this issue by the IAFF during negotiations and thereby could not comment on their involvement in declining the Unions attempt to help remedy the concern over Health and Welfare issues presented by the City Manager thru his negotiation representatives. It would further appear through the testimony of Councilman Cubberley that his intent could readily be supported by the City of Norman opting out of the 'self-insured' realm of attachment and in the near future casting a vote toward moving to an actual Insurance Plan provided by a sole third-party corporation. (Could that be the reason for requiring Employees to share into the cost of its own portion of the Health Insurance Premium now? Only time would tell given the outcome of this case.)

Gala Hicks, the Human Resources Director for the City of Norman was next up for the City in her testimony of what she knew about the Plan and how the Insurance Committee had be recently left out of the loop in helping to decide changes in the Health plan. She felt that the "Unions" could not justify the changes wanting to be made during these meetings and saw City Management discouraged in getting the Committee to "work together" in seeing eye-to-eye on what City Management had intended to accomplish via the City Manager in this respect.

The IAFF finished by bringing to the stand the local AFSCME president to present into testimony why his bargaining group purchased into the demands made by the City during its own negotiations this year. It as apparent that the AFSCME membership were under the gun to get a contract for fear and threat that the City Code would be changed and adopted later in the year during negotiations and would thereby tie the hands of its local to make a decision prior to those changes being ratified by the City Council. He testified that AFSCME members were not treated fairly during negotiations and were "under the gun" to get something accomplished before that happened. It was further testified that AFSCME would receive the same, if better, Insurance benefits if the IAFF or the FOP could "swing a better deal".

The Arbitration Session ended with a 7-day deadline to the Arbitration Board to reach its decision regarding these issues. We will see this award being made on September 18, 2003.

September 8, 2003 - Day two of "Arbitration 2003" with the City of Norman saw City Staff present its side of the argument after an initial questioning of Norman Mayor Ron Henderson who spent his share of time on the witness stand for the IAFF. The City lead with Financial Manager Anthony Fransisco and ended the day with Assistant City Attorney Jeff Bryant.

The day was cut short on time and will continue at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow morning, September 9, 2003.

August 15, 2003 - The IAFF presented its case to an independent Arbitrator today spending the morning doing so with the City of Norman cross examining the evidence as IAFF President seeming to withstand the heat for the bulk of the afternoon.

Unfortunately the Arbitrator needed to catch a plane back to Mississippi and the remainder of the session was postponed. The second half of the match is scheduled for September 8th, 2003.

Despite the flood of information slid back and forth across the table during the previous eight meetings of negotiations between the IAFF Local 2067 and the City of Norman concerning Health Insurance, the City of Norman, with a 24-hour notice, raised Health Insurance premiums 22% following July 1. While the IAFF was fully expecting an increase this year, it continues to amaze the IAFF membership that no hint was given during the negotiating sessions of when or to what extent this was to take place. In spite of this surprise, it should astonish no one that we are faced with an upcoming Arbitration date to confront all other issues without the presents of the usual 'smoke & mirrors' typically found leering at us from the other side of the table these past months.

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Eighth Meeting

June 5, 2003 - Negotiations are beginning to sound a great deal like a broken record, or at the very least...a cracked record, stuck on the same song, "I Left My Heart in Omaha" in endearment to the Health Insurance discussion.

The IAFF will attempt to listen one more meeting to the City's Doomsday Proposals that tend to hold the common theme that the sky is indeed falling. The IAFF does not agree with the assumptions given to them in numerical form by the City nor does it agree, in terms of how it relates to the Total Compensation figures, that it amounts to scurrying about looking for a place to hide when the black clouds start to head down in front of the sky that supposedly will fall.

The City of Norman cannot get "fund reallocation" out of their proposals as the IAFF reminded them again this meeting that any proposal that includes such a concept will not be entertained by the IAFF.

We will wait on additional developments until the next meeting scheduled for June 19, 2003 at 2:00 p.m. (UPDATE: The meeting scheduled for June 19th will be postponed. The next meeting date has yet to be determined.)

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Seventh Meeting

May 28, 2003 - The IAFF is approaching a limit on negotiations with Health Insurance as a primary issue. If the City of Norman wishes to continue this particular conversation (with this particular subject), it will need to arrange for something to negotiate with in regards to levity. The IAFF has done all it can to work toward helping the Health Insurance plan remain solvent. The City of Norman however, seems to be stuck on the issue of single dependents taking more of a monetary role in keeping the 'floaty' in the pool. Hence, the City is asking the IAFF to increase its donation to the pond by 75% while the city increase its droppings by 8%. This is obviously something the Local 2067 cannot descend to.

The next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, June 5, 2003 at 2:00 p.m.

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Sixth Meeting

May 16, 2003 - The City & the IAFF continue to hash at negotiations with the topic of Health Insurance. The City of Norman wishes for employee's to contribute more funds into the health plan in order to keep the fund in the 'black'. The IAFF doesn't see the benefit in re-allocating funds from one pocket to another as a means of creating the needed cash pool required to keep the fund solvent.

The IAFF showed the City, using Norman's numbers, that certain changes will provide the fund a means to head in the direction it needs to create the pool of money the City is hoping for. The City however, wishes to cut costs by allowing the employee to contribute more of the cost with a 10% contribution to the premiums. The IAFF doesn't see how that will create a more stable fund. The IAFF does not consider that an option for negotiation.

The next meeting will be held on Wednesday, May 28, 2003 at 2:00 p.m.

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Fifth Meeting

May 7, 2003 - This meeting was, once again, a rehash of number crunching by the City to bolster their position that needed changes to the Health Insurance Plan are required to save the City some money. After the IAFF supplied the City with a negotiating concession during the last meeting on this subject, the City primarily concentrated on downplaying the IAFF's math and refuting the positive outlook that was used to create the IAFF computations and did not counter propose during this session. The IAFF did however require further opportunities to review the City's figures once again and will return next week with a more complete response to both the analysis of figures and wait for further counter proposals by the City on this subject.

The City of Norman did respond on the request made by the IAFF to release the ceiling on "Sick Leave Buy Back". Currently capped at 1440 hours with a 50% Buy Back rate on saved hours while computation throughout the years of service on wage surveys reflecting a true dollar figure for each hour earned in adjusting wage increases, the City needed to review this and returned this meeting with, "We are just not interested in this." Hmmm...

The next scheduled meeting will be on Friday, May 16, 2003 at 2:00 p.m.

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Fourth Meeting

April 29, 2003 - Conversation continues on the subject of Health Insurance. The IAFF reviewed the proposal received from the City and returned this meeting to give answer to the need the City of Norman feels is present to revamp the Insurance article in the contract to a more "managerial-right" type of language.

The IAFF responded to this "need" by assuring the City it's intent on truly "helping" the all around health of the Insurance Money Pool. It offered to increase co-pays by $5.00 at the drug counter and brought evidence, using the City's numbers, that this small increase along with Premium increases that will be felt by both sides will reflect the rise in the surplus fund as the City was hoping to achieve in part of its proposal. It certainly shows the IAFF is more than willing to work with the City to reach this goal in hopes of having the reserve in tact for those months that require additional resources to meet the monetary obligation of insurance costs. While neither side can say with certainty that anything that is tweaked during this season will give the City Manager what he wants for Christmas, both sides realize that it can, and probably will be, open for review again next year. (Let it be further known that if we had excepted the primary proposal that City laid out, it would eliminate the possibility for "future negotiations" simply by virtue of the method that would be used and changed in doing so. Hence, the City's claim that future talks would be needed even if their plan didn't reach the goal they had in mind, would not happen at all as per the right given them by accepting those contractual changes to begin with. - Huh?)

In addition, a proposal was given to the City concerning "Sick-Leave Buyback". It is fully known that the City of Norman mathmatizes the full amount of "sick-leave" achieved with a monetary value in the "Total Compensation Package" in its Fire Survey. However, upon leaving the employment of the City of Norman, we are currently allowed by contract to receive only a small portion of that value upon separation from the City. The IAFF is asking for a more true-value oriented figure in raising the "buy-back" amount to one-half of the total amount accumulated rather than only half of a ceiling figure of 1440 hours. It was apparent the city is either not interested, or is willing to make concessions on this issue based on the IAFF's desire to "give-in" on the Insurance proposal.

Also in terms of acceptance of the Insurance Proposal by the City, they are willing to part with a 2.4% cost of living if this "Proposal" was accepted when confronted with the idea that the City is basically offering a "negative-gain" contract for FY2004.

The next scheduled meeting will be on Tuesday, May 6, 2003 at 2:00 p.m.

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Third Meeting

April 17, 2003 - Negotiations continue with the bulk of the session discussing the City's "need" to re-administer the cost of premiums toward the employee paying a larger share in hopes the City can save money. The IAFF will be considering some of the requests by the City and return with a possible counter proposal in the next session.

The negotiating teams attempts to invite the City to join its employees in Insurance Committee Meetings have still fallen on deaf ears. Thus, information "supporting" the City's claims that the "need" to address their concerns in terms of reallocating insurance funding resources are difficult at best in reasonably considering the change in the contract to a more 'managerial right' type of language as they have proposed. However, the IAFF is more than willing to consider all supported claims.

The IAFF is working to return with all negotiation items in the next meeting scheduled for April 29th at 9:00 a.m.

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Second Meeting

March 27, 2003 - FY2004 Negotiations continued today with a second meeting.  Most of the discussion was spent on the City of Norman's key item; insurance. The objective of the City seems to be two-fold; (1) is they feel the employee will be more appreciative in a higher "buy-in" on their premium amount currently held by Contract at 0% for employees and 25% for dependant coverage. (2) is they would like to hold a three (3) month reserve totaling $1.5 million dollars in either 1 or 4 years. (Depending on the plan which they would like to see the membership choose from.) Under the direction of the City negotiators, members would be allowed to choose the plan that best fits them.

The City gifted us with several options as can be seen by the Health & Dental Plan Options for FY04. They also handed us information that will be available along with our payroll checks tomorrow. We'll all have a chance to review those in their entirety then.

The City had no other items to negotiate at this time.

The IAFF caucused and returned with the option of needing more time to sift though the information and return with a proper proposal. 

In addition, the Union offered evidence of our continued desire to see a Rank Restructure Plan implemented with the help of Administration. We offered to listen carefully to any concerns or questions about this ongoing plan. The City had mixed feelings about discussing this issue at the moment and needed time to, once again, review the material. The Union will continue to work to improve the plan to allow all answers to the plan addressed inside the plan as it develops.

The next meeting will be held on April 17, 2003 at 1:00 p.m.

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Ground Rules Meeting

February 25, 2003 - Brief conversations concerning upcoming items that would probably be discussed and background information. A meet and greet, a re-acquaintance meeting. Next meeting is scheduled for March 27, 2003 at 2:00 p.m.