The unresolved labor agreement with city firefighters caused sparks to fly at the City Council Monday night — although fire department issues often to seem to light a fire under the council.
DEENA WINTER / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Monday, December 8, 2008 6:00 pm
The unresolved labor agreement with city firefighters caused sparks to fly at the City Council Monday night — although fire department issues often to seem to light a fire under the council.
While the city’s other employee unions have all resolved their contracts, Lincoln firefighters have been working without a contract since the end of August. In October, the City Council took the unprecedented step of rejecting a labor agreement that would have begun giving firefighter pensions annual cost-of-living increases.
But instead of sending negotiators back to the table, the mayor’s office tried to force the council to decide between two different labor contracts on Monday: One with the COLA, and another with a 4 percent salary increase.
The council decided to delay voting for one week — with a 4-3 vote split along party lines.
Meanwhile, the head of the fire union strongly implied that if the contract isn’t resolved by Dec. 19, it’s possible the union will take the dispute to a state arbitrator to resolve.
Republican council members said they hadn’t been involved enough in negotiations, while Democrats disagreed. The debate dissolved into attacks between council members Jonathan Cook and Jon Camp — frequent foes, especially when it comes to the fire department.
The council went back-and-forth over whether the mayor’s office kept the council in the loop during negotiations, why the city’s negotiating team never went back to the firefighters union after the City Council’s last directive and whether council members should be discussing the issue in the press.
“We’re not here to be a rubber stamp,” Camp said.
But talk turned tart when Camp accused Cook of missing the council’s private meetings on the labor contract — Camp often chides Cook for missing informal meetings.
In response, Councilman Dan Marvin said he was going to buy a “box of gold stars” for Camp to keep attendance records.
At one point, Camp made a cheeky reference to having “too many Cooks in the kitchen” because Cook said he felt the mayor’s office kept him adequately updated on the contract.
Marvin later asked the city attorney several questions about the appropriateness of council members disclosing things that were said in the council’s closed-to-the-public executive sessions on the labor contract.
Councilman Ken Svoboda attempted to end the cattiness by saying the discussion made the council “look like a bunch of bumbling fools.”
“This constant one-upmanship for the media is ridiculous,” Svoboda scolded his colleagues.
Councilman Doug Emery also tried to calm the situation, saying, “This has not been our finest hour.”
Meanwhile, Dave Engler, head of the firefighters union, was opposed to the whole scene, saying contracts can’t be put together piecemeal. He said the council could give firefighters a good Christmas present by resolving the contracts “in a peaceful manner.”
And although he had earlier implied the union might turn to the state Commission of Industrial Relations to settle the dispute, he also said, “I don’t think anyone wins in the commission.” The commission requires public employees’ salaries to be comparable to their colleagues in other cities.
He suggested the union would be open to having a couple of council members sit in on negotiations, so they can see the whole picture.
And regarding the fracas he’d just witnessed, Engler said, “On a positive note, the firefighters and the city negotiation team seems to get along better than the City Council.”
Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.