August 30, 2007

City council agrees to have stakeholders in on retiree benefits debate

Council says this is just the beginning of planning and no benefits will be ‘taken away’

By Christina Brown
Times Intern

The San Jose City Council passed a second memorandum on city employees’ retirement medical benefits following an hour of debate.

Discussion about changing the current structure of retiree health benefits began at the Aug. 9 council meeting. Conversation continued at Tuesday night’s meeting with more than 20 members of the community, nearly all from labor unions or city workers representing themselves, speaking.

The new memorandum, written mostly by Mayor Chuck Reed with assistance from Councilmembers Dave Cortese, Nancy Pyle and Forrest Williams, assured that stakeholders, like representatives from all forms of city labor, would be involved in the process of putting together a new plan for retiree medical benefits.

The current benefits, which were developed when the city had only 1,100 employees, can no longer be sustained because of the city’s budget deficit and the increase in city workers, whose numbers have more than tripled.
Community members spoke passionately about fear for their children’s health care when they retire and were outraged to think the city could just turn its back on labor agreements.

“The issue shouldn’t even be on the table,” said David Rodriguez, a 20-year employee for the Department of Public Works. “To me it’s a non-negotiable matter. Our retirement should not be on the table.”

Tom Bran, president of the inspector’s union and a San Jose employee for 22 years, spoke about how much employees wanted to be involved in the process. “You can see how many city employees are here tonight,” he said, gesturing to the crowd that had waited hours to speak on the subject. “We care.”

Many community members also came to show support for the new memo’s call for input from stakeholders. They were eager to help in putting together a creative plan to ensure workers received the same benefits they signed on for, while still cutting costs to the city.

“CAMP [City Association of Management Personnel] is committed to working with the city to address the issue, contribute long term solutions,” Rich Coco, president of CAMP, said, “and ensure we are treated in a collaborative attempt.”

However, a few people were not as enthusiastic about the memo, including a member of the city attorney’s office who worried that because his work has no union representative he, and the hundreds of other employees not represented by unions, will not be part of these negotiations.

“I feel completely left out of this,” he said. “I want your statement tonight that you are not going to take our medical benefits away.”

When the debate reached the council, they were very upbeat about the prospect of developing an innovative solution that both parties could agree to. They also wanted to ensure the community that no sweeping reform would take place behind closed doors.

City Attorney Rick Doyle admitted the city was still looking into whether it was even legal to negotiate the agreed upon contract and assured workers that absolutely nothing regarding their benefits had yet been decided. “No decisions have been made,” Doyle said. “It’s go out and study it. Then come back [and decide].”

One conflict seemed to be the different “assumptions” made in the report put together by Employee Relations Director Alex Gurza, Human Resources Director Mark Danaj and Finance Director Scott P. Johnson. Gurza said that the benefits in the report were “essentially the same” as they are now. However, others were coming up with different numbers than the city report because they had made different future predictions.

Councilmember Williams earnestly told employees, “The report is not a change in the retirement policy. When someone comes up to the podium and says, ‘What are you just going to take it away?’ We have no intention of doing that.”

He also remained thoroughly confident that both sides could collaborate on an original solution. “People look to this city for solutions,” he said. “Surely this is no match for our abilities.”

Councilmember Sam Liccardo proposed a friendly amendment to include neighborhood members as stakeholders, as they are the ones “paying the bill,” so they could be included in the process. The amendment was not accepted, but Reed did say there will be public meetings on the subject, as well, allowing neighborhood members to be involved.

The council emphasized this is just the beginning and hoped that the passions ignited over this issue could be put toward constructive ends. “We have funds for 15 years for federated and 10 [years] for police and fire,” Williams said. “We have that in the bank. So we have some time to get this done, and do it right.”