City officials and workers announced Tuesday at the Berkeley City Council meeting their agreement on a two-tiered pension system and a deferral of a previously agreed upon salary increase in hopes of ameliorating Berkeley’s current budget deficit.
After nearly four months of negotiations, an agreement that would work to decrease the city’s $12.2 million deficit for the next fiscal year was reached with the Service Employees International Union Local 1021. The union represents the city’s maintenance and clerical workers.
The agreement would affect about 525 of Berkeley’s maintenance and clerical workers, according to city spokesperson Mary Kay Clunies-Ross.
The result of the reductions in Cost-of-Living Adjustments — which would include this agreement with the union — should garner a net savings of $411,000 in the 2012 fiscal year with an annual ongoing savings of $389,000, according to the memorandum of the agreement between the city and the union.
Under the revised pension system, new employees hired after Jan. 1, 2012, could retire at age 55 and receive 2 percent of their annual highest pay salary, instead of the current 2.7 percent they currently receive at 55. This amount would also be multiplied by the number of years the employee has served in Berkeley, according to Gladys Gray, president of the maintenance chapter of the union.
Though the union was also scheduled to receive a 4 percent increase in 2012 — a 2 percent increase before December and an additional 2 percent increase after December — under the new agreement, the union would defer this increase and has agreed to only receive an increase of 2 to 3 percent for the year, according to Sandra Lewis, president of the clerical chapter of the union.
“This reduction saved employees from going out the door, because this saved employee services from being cut,” Lewis said.
Lewis said she attributes these cost-cutting measures to the city’s progressively deteriorating economy.
“Five years ago, we never thought these concessions would occur when we thought of the economy, but the city is trying to get through these rough times,” Lewis said. “As employees, we feel that we have to do our part so that the citizens of the city do not feel the budget is all on their backs.”
Lewis said this is the second concession that they agreed upon to help ease the city’s looming budget. However, Gray said the maintenance chapter could not make such a concession at that time.
During the last fiscal year, Lewis said the clerical chapter began a program for members to volunteer to take time off without pay, when offices closed two days each month. A few members also reduced their work schedule to 37.5 hours a week, moving their status to below full time, she said.
Lewis said union members were overwhelmingly willing to adopt these concessions, with 90 percent voting in favor of the agreement — a level of support she said she attributes to the union’s ongoing education of the city’s fiscal crisis.
“I want to thank the (union) for having leadership and stepping up to have a real discussion about the city’s fiscal situation by agreeing to open their contracts, reduce their salary’s increases and looking out for the long-term benefit of the city by looking at some real pension reform,” City Manager Phil Kamlarz said at the meeting Tuesday. “The SEIU 1021 really stepped up to the plate.”
According to Kamlarz and Gray, both parties said the open communication they experienced during the negotiations helped foster the development of a good working relationship between city officials and employees.
Kamlarz said he believes this is a first step to show how such collaboration can benefit the city.
The City Council is set to consider the recommendation at its June 28 meeting.
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union good guys!