All City Unions Due for Contract Settlement

Contracts for all seven city bargaining units should be in place by mid-December and will cover all four years of Mayor Adrian O. Mapp's term.

Salary increases must be passed by ordinance on two readings. Final passage on an increase for members of the Plainfield Municipal Management Association took place Nov. 10 and six other contracts passed on first reading, with final passage expected on Dec. 8. The bargaining units as listed on the Nov. 10 agenda are the Plainfield Municipal Employees Association, the Plainfield Fire Officers Association, the Fire Mutual Benevolent Association, the Policemen's Benevolent Association Local 19 (officers and rank & file) and United Service Workers Union Local 255. Increases for all are 1.5 percent annually for 2014, 2015, 2016 and 2017.

Over the years,  some unions have worked for years without a contract. It seemed unusual to have all contracts settled and Plaintalker asked Mayor Adrian O. Mapp about it.

"First, let me say how pleased I am that we have been able to work in good faith with all of our bargaining units to come up with new collective negotiation agreements," Mapp said. "Our goal was to have all of the agreements settled before the end of my first year in office and to have them in place for a full 4 years to run concurrent with my term. I don’t recall this ever being done."

Mapp cited a spirit of cooperation between the administration and the bargaining units.

"The team was very focused, candid and honest in its approach and gained the trust of the various bargaining units who all wanted to reach agreements that were reasonable and fair, during the very challenging economic times that we face as a City. The success of these negotiations is unprecedented and speaks to the spirit of cooperation that exists between my Administration and our Unions. Fairness, cooperation, professionalism and respect were the determining factors," he said in an email response to our query.

The city also has a roster of non-union employees that used to get raises after all the union contracts were settled. The list includes department heads, the city administrator, the police director, the city clerk, the chief financial officer, the fire chief, the personnel director and several other titles. Raises for those employees used to be passed by ordinance as well, but in recent years that has not been the case. In 2006, only the chief financial officer and the city clerk received raises by ordinance, retroactive for four years. The title of police chief was abolished in 2008 and replaced by the title of police director. However, no salary band was set for police director until 2010.

Plaintalker reported on the increasing disparity in compensation for cabinet titles in 2009. One of the concerns was the ability to attract top staff in the future with such disparity. The list of non-represented officials also changed, as indicated by past responses to Plaintalker's OPRA requests. Perhaps the most curious situation among the non-union employees was having a department head (Public Affairs & Safety) over a police director. In the last administration, Martin Hellwig held both titles, in effect reporting to himself. He received only one salary but also had pension income from Essex County.

Plaintalker will be looking into the non-union contract situation in coming weeks.

Besides settling contracts, another item that can affect the city budget is the amount owed to employees for unused sick and vacation days. The state requires municipalities to declare the amount in budget statements, along with any funds set aside to help meet the liability. Plaintalker wrote about "The Big I.O.U." in 2008, when the so-called Compensated Absence Liability was around $4.9 million for 17,661 days and nothing was set aside for payouts. In 2014, the liability is down by 29 percent to $3.4 million for 12,950 days and $200,000 is in reserve. It is still a lot compared to municipalities that don't allow accumulation of sick and vacation days, but at least it is trending downward.

--Bernice