In their first deals under a new state bargaining law, Milwaukee
firefighters and police commanders have agreed to pay significantly more
for their health care in exchange for pay raises.
But the
police officers union has rejected a similar deal - even though the city
offered to fill 100 police vacancies, a top priority of the Milwaukee
Police Association.
Contracts
expired at the end of 2009 for all three unions, and they have been
working under extensions of their previous agreements. Unlike other
public employees, police and firefighters were exempt from the state law
that ended most public-sector collective bargaining and required state
and local government workers to pay 12% of their health care premium
costs and half their pension costs.
City
negotiators, however, pushed to extend the same health care
contributions to the public safety unions. The pension issue, by
contrast, has been in legal limbo since City Attorney Grant Langley
issued an opinion saying the state law did not apply to the city pension
fund.
The Milwaukee
Professional Firefighters Association voted Wednesday to ratify a
three-year contract that would retroactively freeze pay for 2010,
incorporate premium pay into base salaries for 2011 and raise wages 4%
next year for some 800 firefighters up through the rank of captain, said
City Labor Negotiator Troy Hamblin and Ald. Michael Murphy, chairman of
the Common Council's Finance & Personnel Committee.
Late last month, the Milwaukee Police Supervisors' Organization ratified a deal
with similar 2010 and 2011 wage provisions, followed in 2012 by raises
of 4.75% for sergeants and 3% for lieutenants, captains and deputy
inspectors, according to documents sent to Murphy's committee. Sergeants
are the overwhelming majority of the union's roughly 325 members,
Hamblin said.
But the
larger police union, representing about 1,800 rank-and-file officers and
detectives, voted 52% to 48% this week against a contract that would
have raised 2012 pay by 4.3%, with the same 2010-'11 pay provisions as
the other two safety unions, city officials said. - JS Online
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