Labor unions have the advantage in negotiations, officials contend

Communities have less staff than unions to handle arbitration, one official notes.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
Local government officials say the deck is stacked against them when they take the employee-contract process to fact-finding or conciliation, driving up employee costs and adding to the rising costs of doing business.
"It forces you to offer more than the city can afford," Warren Mayor Hank Angelo said.
Collective bargaining units can go to fact-finding, in which a neutral fact finder makes a recommendation regarding a contract.
If either side rejects the fact finder's recommendation, negotiations may continue, or in the case of unions that cannot strike -- police, fire and dispatchers -- the process moves to conciliation.
In conciliation, each side presents its case to a conciliator, who sides with either the employer or the union on each issue individually.
Because conciliators rarely accept cities' offers of 0 percent raises, a city must offer some raise, or it risks having the conciliator adopt a higher raise proposed by a union, Angelo explained.
Outside of levy
Cortland Mayor Melissa Long said that three years ago, when the city was negotiating a new police contract, the city explained to an arbitrator that its police, fire and paramedic workers are paid from revenue generated by a safety levy, not from the general fund.
"The arbitrator told us, 'Well, that's good. I'm glad that you have a levy, but your general fund is lucrative, and I'd like to see you take money from there,'" Long said.
Concessions by both sides led to a contract that stayed within the funds generated by the levy, she said, but she's apprehensive about the next contract in spring 2004.
"That arbitrator's statement told me that was the way of things to come," Long said.
John McNally IV, Youngstown law director, thinks staffing is one reason public employers may not fare as well as unions in the process.
In negotiations with the Ohio Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, for example, McNally and three other city attorneys represent the city. The union, on the other hand, has economists on staff and works with police departments all over the state.
OPBA has all of the police contracts they've worked with in the state ready to be called up and the information given to the fact finder, but those contracts aren't necessarily comparable to Youngstown in terms of income tax and population loss, McNally said.
Angelo said an arbitrator sees representatives of the police and firefighter unions or the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees all over the state, while seeing city officials only once.
After a conciliator rules against a union, word gets around, and that person isn't picked by other locals to hear cases, he said.
Concerns of fairness
"That's a common concern from both sides," said J. Russell Keith, acting executive director of the State Employment Relations Board. Keith said previous rulings can be researched ahead of time.
Keith said the panel doesn't keep records of the number of rulings in favor of government vs. unions.
Atty. Randy Weltman, whose Cleveland law firm represents several police department unions in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, including Warren, Boardman, Niles, Cortland and Youngstown, said the conciliation process cuts both ways.
"I wouldn't say it's slanted one way of the other. There's not really a lot of leeway when making these decisions," he said. A conciliator looks at surrounding communities and what their employees are paid, he said.
Angelo contends conciliators are supposed to consider a community's financial condition but don't.
Weltman counters that unless a city demonstrates it can't afford raises, conciliators award them.
He pointed to East Cleveland as an example of a city in which a union wasn't awarded raises because of financial distress.
Although many public employers complain of a dire financial condition, trying to avoid raises, they sometimes can't prove it, Weltman said. Just like word gets around among unions of unfavorable rulings, it also gets around among public employers. That's why it's in the best interests of arbitrators to be neutral and fair as both sides must agree to the assignment, he added.
McNally said he's never come across an arbitrator who was clearly on the management side or the union side, but he acknowledged that the process is a job for fact finders and arbitrators and that they depend on it to make money.
"I do think there's an opportunity for a person to work for a union, such as OPBA, more often than for them to deal with the city of Youngstown's law director," he said.
'Roster of neutrals'
SERB provides a list of names it calls a "roster of neutrals" from which both sides may choose both fact finders and conciliators.
Fact finders earn up to $550 per day, half of which is paid by SERB. The parties split the other half, Keith said. The amount paid to a conciliator is negotiated between the conciliator and the parties. SERB doesn't contribute to a conciliator's pay.
Both sides can strike names from a list of seven prospective arbitrators; a coin toss decides which side gets to strike a name first, said Gary Cicero, Warren's human-resources director. The striking continues until there's one name left, he said.
For the last several years, Austintown has been able to reach settlements with its unions, said Michael B. Dockry, township administrator. But he understands what other communities are dealing with.
"A public employer goes in there knowing that the odds are against them," he said. "You know that you're not going to get out of there without some kind of additional cost."
He declined to offer a theory of why.
Dockry said he's not heard a fact finder or a conciliator say that because a community's financial situation is bleak, it shouldn't assume additional costs. "That just doesn't happen," Dockry said.
Potential fact finders and conciliators apply to SERB, which reviews their backgrounds, writing samples and r & eacute;sum & eacute;s. The board looks for people who have several years' experience in labor relations.
More than 100 names fill SERB's roster of neutrals. Some are attorneys; others come from academia.
"When the parties go through the process, there's not just one issue there," Keith said. "One side may win on an issue they don't care about and lose one they were more concerned about."
Keith said that overall, both sides see their experiences with fact finders as fair.
denise.dick@vindy.com