43
Youngstown firefighters strongly reject new contract
Photo
McNally
YOUNGSTOWN
The city’s firefighters union overwhelmingly rejected a three-year contract even though it included salary increases for its members for the first time in five years.
The main reason union membership voted down the contract 91-6 is health-care expenses, said David Cook, president of the 138-member International Association of Firefighters Local 312.
The contract kept workers’ contributions to their health-care premiums at 10 percent, but would remove caps on the maximum amount an employee could contribute to premiums by September 2015.
For firefighters, those caps are $100 a month for single coverage and $200 for family coverage.
It was incorrectly reported Thursday that the firefighters had caps on their monthly premium lifted.
“The city is overpaying for health care,” Cook said. “The city needs to control health-care costs. We feel it’s the city’s obligation to get health care under control.”
Cook pointed to a report from the State Employment Relations Board that provides information on health-care costs for public-sector workers.
The city’s health-insurance policy costs $666 a month for single coverage and $1,678 a month for family coverage. City employees pay 10 percent of that amount. The Youngstown insurance plan includes doctor visits, hospitalization, vision and dental coverage, and prescription drugs.
The SERB report states the average monthly employee contribution in cities with populations from 25,000 to 99,999 is $67 for single and $162 for family. SERB states government entities in its report receive coverage for doctor visits, hospitalization and prescription drugs but doesn’t specify which, if any, entities receive vision and dental coverage.
Youngstown union members pay $66.60 for single and $167.80 for a family a month. Three years ago, those numbers for Youngstown union members were $56.25 and $141.78, respectively.
The report also states public-sector workers in the Youngstown-Warren area pay on average $37 for single coverage and $89 for family coverage monthly — which is considerably more than what city of Youngstown workers pay.
The report also states compared with statewide averages, those in this region contribute 43.9 percent less for single coverage and 52.4 percent less for family coverage.
Firefighters want the city to put together a health-care study to provide options to lower premium costs.
Mayor John A. McNally said: “I agree we need to get our health-care costs under control. The first step is by removing caps.”
Recent contracts with other employee unions — except the police patrol officers, which had their contract approved by a state conciliator — remove caps immediately or delay it a couple of years.
“I’m optimistic we’ll get [the fire union] contract done,” McNally said. “We’ll let the dust settle here for a bit, sit down with the union and see how we can work through this. We’d prefer not to go to fact-finding and conciliation. I would hope it would be resolved within a month.”
The mayor also wants to create an employer/employee committee to look at health-care costs and ways to reduce those expenses.
The creation of a health-insurance review committee was part of the previous fire union contract, which expired Sunday.
“The committee hasn’t been created, but we have worked that provision into other union contracts,” McNally said. “As soon as we get that into all contracts [there’s one remaining], the committee will be formed and meet.”
Like other recent union contracts with the city, the firefighters were to get a 1 percent pay raise in the first year of the deal followed by a 1.5 percent raise in the second year and a 1 percent increase in the final year. The firefighters union hasn’t had a pay raise since 2009.
But even with the salary increases, Cook said, firefighters are losing money.
Firefighters’ pension contribution went from 10 percent of their salary in 2012 to 10.75 percent last year to 11.5 percent this year, ending next year at 12.25 percent, Cook said. The city’s contribution remains a figure equal to 24.5 percent of a firefighter’s salary.
While that was a state decision, and not a city one, it is putting a financial strain on firefighters, Cook said.
The contract rejection comes about five weeks after McNally said the city would save about $1 million annually by taking a firetruck off the road and eliminate eight positions in the fire department through attrition by the end of the year.