The City of Davis declared impasse with DCEA (Davis City Employees Association) back on November 8, 2012. More recently, on April 12, 2013, the city declared impasse with the Davis firefighters’ union, Local 3494.
According to a press release from May 31, “The City’s agreement with DCEA expired on June 30, 2009, and the agreement with Local 3494 expired on June 30, 2012. The City commenced negotiations with both groups in the spring of 2012 regarding the terms and conditions of employment for these represented units, and the parties have spent the last year negotiating for successor agreements.”
The communication goes on to describe impasse as a step in the process that automatically triggers mediation and fact-finding at the request of the bargaining group or union when agreement cannot be reached during the collective bargaining process.
This provides an opportunity to move to fact-finding where both sides can present their case.
“The City’s position is fundamentally different than that of both Local 3494 and DCEA regarding whether the City faces long-term financial problems and their magnitude,” the press release states. “The City believes there are long-term systemic cost issues that a change in the economic cycle and a potential uptick in future revenues will not address.”
“The City and DCEA attempted mediation without success,” the city updates the public. They are currently in the middle of the fact-finding process with DCEA.
Mediation will begin on June 11, 2013, with the firefighters’ union.
They write, “Under state law, the City of Davis cannot unilaterally make changes to working terms and conditions for represented employee groups. Although the agreements both with DCEA and Local 3494 have expired, the parties must observe the terms and conditions of the expired agreement until a new agreement is negotiated or until the City may lawfully impose its final offer at the completion of mediation and fact-finding.”
The city notes that they have reached agreements with all the other bargaining groups representing 66% of the city’s employees, including the Davis Police Officer’s Association (DPOA), Individual Management Employees, and the Program, Administrative and Support Employees Association (PASEA).
They conclude, “The city remains hopeful that the mediation and fact-finding process may result in a negotiated agreement with DCEA and Local 3494.”
Back in May of 2010, staff advised council, “The City has made three months of good faith efforts to comply with the final step of impasse resolution procedures in the Employee/Employer Relations Ordinance 1303 without success, and staff believes the prerequisites to unilateral implementation set forth in section 3505.4 have been met.”
The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) disagreed and overturned it in November 2011, ruling, “It has been found that the City violated MMBA sections 3503, 3505, 3506, and 3509(b) and PERB Regulation 32603(a), (b), (c), and (g) when it passed Resolution 10-070 on May 25, 2010, before exhausting the fact-finding process set forth in its local rules.
They continued: “It is therefore appropriate to order the City to cease and desist from such activities in the future. Additionally, if the City wants to proceed through its impasse procedures, it must provide adequate time to complete the fact-finding process as set forth in its local rules.”
The result of that decision led to the lay off of nine positions within DCEA.
“This is in order to offset the revenue hit from DCEA not making concessions three years ago,” the city manager told the Vanguard at the time. “These are DCEA positions only, across all funding sources, because the impact which is $800,000 plus interest if we were to lose on appeal would be spread across that bargaining group across different funding sources.”
“In these tough economic times, with significant reductions in available revenue, Davis is one of a select group of cities that’s been able to sustain a high level of service for its citizens,” Mr. Pinkerton wrote. “As we approach a new budget year, economic and political forces continue to challenge our ability to provide the necessary resources to meet the demands of our citizens. Although revenues remain relatively flat, unfunded mandates from the state continue to mount unabated, our health and pension costs continue their meteoric rise, and the state of California has forced us to dismantle our Redevelopment Agency, a primary tool for economic development.”
Impasse, thanks to changes in the state law, is more difficult and lengthy.
On October 9, 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown signed AB 646, which amends the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA) “to require certain public sector employers to submit their differences with a labor organization representing their employees to a ‘fact-finding panel’ for impasse resolution.”
Under the new law, the employer covered by the MMBA is able to implement its “last, best, and final offer” after the parties’ respective positions over wages, benefits and other terms and conditions of employment have been presented to the panel, the panel’s findings and recommendations have been made public and a public hearing has been held on the impasse.
According to one analysis, “AB 646 is a significant change to what historically has been considered an informal and undefined process under the MMBA for breaking an impasse between the parties. Indeed, the new law amends the MMBA to impose additional requirements on counties, cities and special districts if voluntary mediation is unable to effectively settle the parties’ dispute.”
In the meantime, the firefighters’ union is the most highly-compensated bargaining unit in the city. They recently unsuccessfully attempted to stop the city from reducing firestaffing from 12 to 11 personnel per shift.
According to data that the Vanguard received from the city of Davis in April, a comparison of Davis to ten other regional communities plus UC Davis found that the city of Davis firefighters received, both in salary and total compensation, more than all but two other communities (Fairfield and Vacaville), while their police counterparts received less than both average and median income and total compensation. Only Sacramento and West Sacramento police received less among cities.
These data continue a trend that the Vanguard has reported on since the seminal May 2009 article that asked, “Why Do Firefighters Make Substantially More Than Police Officers in Davis?“
The city, struggling to close what is expected to be a structural deficit of nearly $6 million within five years, estimated a few months ago a heavy cost of more than $50,000 per month in additional benefits to the employees of the two bargaining units.
As the city struggles to deal with increasing structural deficits and to pay for critical infrastructure, the failure of these bargaining units to reach terms will make these endeavors more difficult.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Who constitutes the ‘panel’, when is this expected to come to a final decision for both groups? And I would assume there is no correction for back pay already paid if the final decision is a cut in pay? Thanks David.
They don’t have to pay back their back pay, which is one of the incentives they have to drag this out as long as they can.
i look forward to the council cleaning up another mess left to them by the previous council