By Caroline Boyer
Bonner Springs Chieftain – September 12, 2013
Submitted by Newz Group Clipping Service – September 20, 2013
Last month, while the Bonner Springs City Council was considering the possibility of negotiating with employee union groups, the Edwardsville City Council was opting out of doing so.
While Edwardsville has negotiated with employee groups like the Fraternal Order of Police and International Association of Firefighter for years, last week the council voted to opt out of the state law that allows the city to do so. Meanwhile, Bonner Springs continues to consider opting into the law at the request of its Fraternal Order of Police lodge.
The Edwardsville council conducted a 30-minute executive session to discuss employer-employee negotiations at its Aug. 26 meeting, and following the meeting, the council approved 5-1 the adoption of resolution 2013-09, which had the city opt out of the Kansas Public Employer-Employee Relations Act, or PEERA. The law allows city employees to form a union and collectively bargain, or negotiate contracts, with the city. Councilwoman Margaret Shriver opposed the item; the vote total included a vote from Mayor John “Tiny” McTaggart.
Later in the meeting, Councilman Chuch Adams stated that the vote to pull out of PEERA was done so that the employees of the city could be treated fairly and equitably with other employees of the city. He said he was excited and saw the move as a positive improvement.
The city currently has a contract with its police officers that are members of the Fraternal Order of Police through 2014. It had a contract with firefighters who are members of the International Association of Firefighters that expired in 2010, but that contract has been in negotiations since that time.
On Monday, Mike Webb, city manager, explained that the contracts the city formed with these unions largely dealt with how employees would file a grievance with the city.
“The processes we have (with non-union employees)… and what we have in our personnel manual are basically the same,” he said. “We will still have a grievance process, and it has steps in it very similar to what we’ve been doing.”
Webb said some city employees also have requested a step-in-pay system that is more uniform for the city and equal benefits, so the city has been trying to create that and wanted it to apply to all employees.
“Everybody wants to know there’s some uniformity in the process, in the system,” he said. “Holidays, just all those types of things, how we’re going to be treated, should be uniform. I think there was just a lot of general concern about how we’re doing that. We’ve got a personnel manual, we’ve got this agreement, we’ve got this agreement, and is that really in the best interest of the employees.”
Bob Wing, the business manager for the local branch of the International Association of Firefighters, spoke before Monday’s council meeting and stated that he didn’t believe the city had acted lawfully by opting out of PEERA immediately.
“This will not go down quietly; we will not let this rest until we believe the citizen’s issues have been discussed in open court,” he told the court.
Sheila Rogoza, who serves as president of the Edwardsville Lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police, said that the lodge’s negotiations with the city in the last six years have been nothing but wonderful, and they weren’t aware of any problems.
“We were devastated, surprised, shocked… we didn’t see it coming,” she said of learning of the council’s decision.
Meanwhile, in Bonner Springs, the city council was taking the second step in a three-step process of discussing opting in to PEERA. At its Aug. 26 meeting, members of the Fraternal Order of Police presented their reasons for doing so; on Monday, city staff was to review the matter from their point of view.
City officials reminded the council that participating in PEERA would entitle all city employees to form a union, so the city would have to collectively bargain with every organized work unit. Bonner officials also stated that they thought their personnel policy affectively addressed the items that would be discussed in collective bargaining.
The Bonner council is set to take its final discussion step in a workshop prior to its next meeting, when council members will review both sides of the discussion before deciding if they would like to put the matter to an official council vote.
Bonner Springs discussed collective bargaining last year, as well, but voted against opting into PEERA in March.
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