After months of negotiations, approval, veto, veto override and subsequent grievances, Park Ridge’s contract with its firefighters is finally in the clear.
Aldermen Monday voted to approve a grievance settlement that Mayor David Schmidt vehemently insisted was really a re-negotiation over the contract’s starting date, and the result of “sloppy” work by city officials.
“This is not a grievance process, this is a re-negotiation of the start dates of the contract,” Schmidt said. “Let’s call this what it is. … For this to be called a grievance is galling to me, frankly.”
City Manager James Hock said the settlement will cost the city about an extra $6,400 in the contract’s first year — an amount to be balanced out by reducing overtime payments.
Schmidt pointedly asked Hock who on the city’s negotiating team “messed up?” He also questioned why the attorney hired by the city to assist in labor negotiations didn’t know or think to bring up the contract’s start date.
Fire Chief Michael Zywanski took the blame, saying that since he was the city’s lead negotiator, the responsibility was his.
The three-year contract with Local 2697 of the International Association of Fire Fighters was approved on Sept. 19 and vetoed by Schmidt on Oct. 3. At the time, Schmidt objected to the pact’s guaranteed 3 percent pay raise in the third year and its no-layoffs clause. Two weeks later, aldermen overwhelmingly overrode his veto.
The union subsequently filed a grievance over the contract’s start date, which was May 1, 2011, because the pact wasn’t signed by the city until Nov. 12. The union argued that because the previous contract still applied on Veterans Day, its members were entitled to the holiday overtime pay provided by the old pact.
As that was discussed, Hock said other questions emerged regarding how much the city owed firefighters for dental and HMO coverage co-payments, and different types of overtime pay because what was considered retroactive to May 1 had not been made clear.
Under the settlement, the city doesn’t owe overtime for Veterans Day or co-pays.
Aldermen approved the settlement with a 4-1 vote. Alds. Richard DiPietro, Jim Smith, Sal Raspanti and Marty Maloney voted in favor. Fifth Ward Ald. Dan Knight, who chairs the council’s finance committee, voted against. Ald. Joseph Sweeney left the meeting early to attend a wake, and Ald. Tom Bernick was not in attendance.
