Providence unions offer $5 million in contract concessions
Providence police, firefighters unions offer $5 million in contract concessions
From The Providence Journal, January 30
Quote:
PROVIDENCE, RI – The police and firefighters unions have offered the city contract concessions totaling nearly $5 million to head off a projected shortfall in the city's current budget, union officials said yesterday.
Following a private meeting with Mayor David N. Cicilline, the executive board of the Providence Fraternal Order of Police proposed a hiring freeze for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends in June, and extending into 2010. That would result in savings of at least $1 million, according to the union.
The police union, which represents 475 officers, is also willing to forgo a clothing allowance payment in 2010 and would agree to a new contract that does not call for retroactive pay.
The union's contract expired on June 30, 2007, and typically, any new contract negotiated would include compensation for the time lapse between contracts, according to union president Kenneth M. Cohen.
In a separate meeting, the city firefighters union, which has approximately 450 members, offered Cicilline a $3-million concession package that includes the forfeiture of one vacation week this year by each firefighter and the delayed payment of years of disputed wages should the union win a pending arbitration likely to be settled by June 30, according to president Paul Doughty of Local 799 of the International Association of Firefighters.
The two union announcements follow a similar one issued by Local 1033 of the Laborers' International Union of North America, representing 1,900 city workers, last week.
Local 1033 is offering a package of concessions and proposing policy changes that it says would save the city nearly $3.5 million over the next year and a half.
The union is calling for an 18-month wage freeze, the deferral of two worker's compensation days, the consolidation of certain services in the city and school departments and the laying off of temporary, nonunion workers.
Providence is facing a potential $15-million reduction in state aid in its $641-million city budget for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30.
Cicilline has been meeting individually with representatives from the city's major unions to seek concession in anticipation of major budget reductions this year and next. The mayor, through a spokesperson, declined to comment on the negotiations.
