Part four
Re “A Closer Look at the First Union’s New Deal”
From the perspective of Glenn Heald, the leader of the Culver City Management Group, the first city union to bargain a new slimmer deal, the fresh agreement stands on three main legs:
• “We are going to pick up all of our contributes to the Pers retirement fund,
• “We will implement the ‘cafeteria plan’ (defined in the previous installment), and
• “We have reduced retirement health benefits.”
Plus one more crucial consideration: workers with school-age dependents who have not logged sufficient time in the system.
“If Worker A only has been here five years,” Mr. Heald said, “he would not have any vesting for his dependents. He would have to be here 10 years. Starting on your sixth year, the person would have 20 percent vesting toward his dependents, 40, 60, 80 and eventually 100 percent at 10 years.
“By contrast, employees currently are fully vested after five years in whatever retirement health benefits are available to them. Now for new employees, there will be no dependents, period.
“If Worker A whom I spoke about earlier retired today, he would have full coverage for his family. If he retires on or after Jan. 1, there would be no benefits for his family.
“There is one other element that should be mentioned. Under the current system, you have complete family coverage. Under the new system, it is employee-plus-one, meaning spouse or dependent, but it is only one. Now your entire family is covered, all of your dependents.
“If you were to get divorced or your wife were to pass away, you could change that.
“The new agreement can greatly curtail coverage for spouse and dependents.”
Mr. Heald said that while some have characterized the four months of negotiations as “quick, it sure didn’t seem that way to us. The talks were so intense. We compressed a lot of issues and a lot of discussions into a short time. Plus, you have to remember we have been aware of these (drastic changes) for two years.
“You were there (two years ago) when (retired City Manager) Jerry Fulwood was leaving. As he went out the door, he was waving and saying, ‘By the way, you have a huge deficit. And I don’t see how you are going to handle it without layoffs and without huge concessions on the part of employees.’
“So we all knew what was going to happen. We are management. We work with the budget and the numbers. We have had a lot of time to sit down, look at the situation and decide whether we thought it was a credible, realistic portrayal; if so, how to address it and figure out what we, as a group, could try to do to partner with the city rather than fight them.”
(To be continued)
