Spring 08
Vol. 13 No. 2

New collective bargaining agreement gives HOPE for a stronger workforce

HOPE and city representatives sign the meet-and-confer labor agreement for municipal employees. The agreement went into effect March 26 after being ratified by union members and City Council.

By Dave Schafer

With 13-2 approval by City Council March 26, Houston municipal employees became the first in Texas to be covered by a meet-and-confer agreement. Members of the Houston Organization of Public Employees had ratified the contract March 20 by a 3,202 to seven margin.

The contract, which covers all 13,000-plus municipal employees except directors and elected officials, runs through June 30, 2011.

“It’s a proud day for me personally and for the whole negotiating team,” said Damon Russell, Public Works & Engineering, one of 38 city employees who negotiated on behalf of employees. “The whole nation was watching this process. Employees should bask in what they’ve accomplished and enjoy it.

“This contract gives all city employees a living wage and a voice as to how things are done.”

Both sides worked long and hard to come to the agreement, which will cost the city $179 million, Mayor Bill White said.

“We think it gives employees some certainty about the future, while being responsible and fair to both our hard-working employees and to our taxpayers,” he said.

“This represents probably win, win, win,” said Anthony Hall, White’s chief administrative officer and one of five who represented the city in negotiations. “It is important that the contract retains all of the city’s management prerogatives.”

More money
On April 5, municipal employees received a 3 percent pay raise, and the 541 employees making less than $9.50 an hour saw a bump to $9.50, with that rate going to $10 an hour in September 2009.

Meagan Jones, a librarian assistant, liked that.

“It’s good. I could always use more money,” she said. The $9.32 an hour she was making helps pay for college. “And the union is fighting for a great cause.”

Municipal employees will also receive 3 percent raises in July 2009 and July 2010.

Over the next three fiscal years, 1.25 percent of the payroll budget will be set aside for merit pay. Departments must have plans for how they’ll divvy up that money by July 1.

Katie Tomfohrde, librarian II, said the higher pay rates might attract more quality employees.

“We just can’t keep a lot of positions filled because of the lower rate of pay,” she said. “We have people trying to raise families on $10 or $12 an hour, and that’s not enough.”

Just as importantly, this agreement won’t have an adverse financial impact elsewhere, Hall said. The Mayor’s Office has run the numbers in its five-year financial forecast.

“Our hope is that because of some of the changes, we’ll achieve greater productivity. So, frankly, we ought to see some increased service,” Hall said.

“This will help make us a world-class workforce to go along with a world-class city,” Russell said.

Stronger voice
George Guy, a painter with Parks & Recreation, likes employees having a chance to use their job knowledge to improve how things are done through the new municipal employee consultation committee and departmental employee consultation committees. (See “What you get”.)

The committees, made up of equal numbers from the union and the city, will meet to discuss employee concerns. They have no decision-making authority.

“We think that having an organization to articulate issues benefits both us and them so we can respond to it by either agreeing or not agreeing and explaining why it is that we do what we do,” Hall said.

“Municipal employees didn’t have a voice before,” said Pam Burch, Human Resources.  “Now there’s hope that things will get better for the next generation.”

Amicable negotiations
For eight years, the city supported state legislation that would make it legal for cities to negotiate with an employee association. That legislation passed two years ago.

Union members and city representatives met 44 times over eleven months to hammer out the deal. Russell characterized the negotiations as “extremely amicable.”

But there were differing views. HOPE pointed out that there were no across-the-board pay raises in 11 of the last 20 years. The city pointed out that, through pay programs and promotions, the average wage of municipal employees has gone up 19 percent compared to the year before White took office.

There were a few things, like a disconnect between managers and their employees, that the city wasn’t fully aware of, Russell said.

“We started with the position that what we do in the way of employee relations were fair and right,” Hall said. “As it turns out, there wasn’t a whole lot that was broken.

“There were issues that were brought to our attention that we did need to fix that affected a fairly small number of employees, and we were advised of some of the economic issues that were important to employees. And we did make significant adjustments to them as a result.”

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