Florida City on Verge of Withdrawing No-Pay-Cut Offer

Time is ticking away for Jacksonville firefighters to agree to a city-offered contract that would keep their pay the same.

That offer will be on the table only until the two sides meet for their next negotiating session, in early July.

If it's rejected, city labor attorney Derrel Q. Chatmon said following a Wednesday morning negotiating session, the city's next offer will likely include a pay cut.

An earlier offer by the city also including cutting out extra pay earned by emergency medical technicians. That clause was jettisoned from the offer now under discussion, but could come back in a different deal.

The offer on the table keeps salaries where they are by reinstating a 2 percent cut firefighters agreed to two years ago that would otherwise expire at the end of this fiscal year.

It also includes a promise to meet at least nine time to discuss employee benefits, time the city wishes to use to talk about changes to the public safety pension system.

That remains a major, albeit nebulous, sticking point: The union has steadfastly maintained that conversations about pensions must be had with the Police and Fire Pension Fund, not with the firefighters.

An agreement between the city and the police and firefighter unions has been interpreted to say that pension negotiations belong in the fund's bailiwick.

That position hasn't changed, union President Randy Wyse said Wednesday.

Although the city has said that agreeing to sit down doesn't change any benefits, it's unclear what the union can agree to talk about if it says pensions are off the table.

"The pension issue is very complicated," Wyse said. "The firefighters, police officers, and the city and the pension fund need to walk carefully down that path."

On Wednesday, the union asked for one change to the offer on the table: the inclusion of a promise to not lay off or demote union members (except for cause) during the three years of the contract.

Chatmon will take that request back to the city, he said, indicating during the negotiations that it was at least not an absolute non-starter. "It has to be thoroughly talked about," he said.

The two sides will reconvene July 10. City negotiators have said in the past that they want to have a contract wrapped up before the mayor's office presents its budget to the City Council, where it's due July 16.

Copyright 2012 - The Florida Times-Union, Jacksonville

McClatchy-Tribune News Service