City and Firefighters at Impasse

Benicia firefighters and the city are at an impasse in negotiations on salary reductions according to a statement released by the firefighters on Wednesday.

The statement says the firefighters have offered a variety of suggestions that would achieve cost reductions of $256,000 but that the city has refused to consider those suggestions.

The negotiations are part of the overall effort to close a $1.7 million budget deficit.  In May the to negotiate $1.3 million in salary and benefit cuts with employee groups and to make the balance of the cuts in services.

Mayor wouldn't comment on the negotiations other than to say that the city council had decided to let City Manager Brad Kilger make all statements regarding the negotiations.

"The council is 100 percet behind Brad Kilger on this," said Patterson.  "We're supporting the impasse and working as a team."

Todd Matthews, president of Benicia Firefighter Association also declined to comment on the negotiations saying only that the chief negotiator for the union, Kenneth Akins would be making all statements on behalf of the firefighters.

City council candidate and Economic Development Board chairperson said she supports collective bargaining.

"I hope both parties can work it out," said Strawbridge.

Council candidate Dan Smith, when asked about the impasse, said, "I'm sure both the city negotiators and the unions are aware that this is a time for belt-tightening by government, and that some but not all of that should fall on the rank-and-file employees. It's unfortunate they have not been able to come to terms yet."

Following is the text of the statement released by the firefighters.

On the afternoon of July 18, 2011 the City of Benicia declared impasse with its Firefighters.  The parties were discussing alternatives to layoffs, by virtue of the City invoking a reopener within the Agreement, for such purposes.  Unfortunately, discussing “alternatives to layoffs’ was never the City’s agenda.  Their only interest is to reduce compensation for Firefighters.

Last year the Firefighters agreed to reduce their holiday compensation, reduce their pension, begin cost-sharing with the City for health care and forego any raises.  During the discussions, this year, the Firefighters suggested numerous avenues for cutting costs while achieving the City’s desired savings of S256,021.00.  In many instances that City simply ignored those proposals.  For instance the Firefighters suggested ways to reduce overtime, while maintaining staffing at its current levels.  Nevertheless, the City dismissed this proposal by ignoring the subject entirely.

The City instead of seeking cost savings, to avoid layoffs, insists on concessions from Firefighters, while seeking to fill management positions.  These and other questionable activities have led to the current state of affairs.  The parties have agreed to mediation and the Firefighters remain hopeful and committed to the process and want to resolve the City’s shortfall in a fair and equitable manner.

We sincerely hope that the City also wants to achieve these goals, however, in their “Impasse Letter”, they insist that the matter must be resolved by mid August.  The City made this statement without knowledge of whether a mediator would even be available, by then, much less had any ability to assist in the process.

Disclosure: Patch editor JB Davis was the campaign manager for Dan Smith in his successful campaign for City Council in 2001.  He has no involvement in Smith’s 2011 campaign.