City, APCEA Fail to Reach Salary Agreement

Civilian employees of the still don't have an acceptable salary deal, according to employee salary negotiators.

After reaching an impasse last year, the city imposed terms of the contract that officially expired at the end of fiscal year 2009.

Judy Cook, president of the , provided Arcadia Patch with a list of contract terms her negotiating team seeks from city management:

• Two-way "zipper clause" akin to what police officers currently have in their salary agreement. A bilateral zipper clause prevents both the city and employee associations from initiating negotiations to change an existing contract. Currently the city holds a unilateral zipper clause. Civilian police employees can't ask for contract changes during the term of a salary agreement, while city management can conversely alter the agreement at will.

• Remove the city’s ability to hire independent contractors to do work performed by APCEA workers.

• "2 percent at 60" for new employees: The union is "willing to consider it if the city manager and City Council lead by example and agree to be included in this new tier," said Cook. This refers to the formula for calculating retirement pensions. For example, an employee earning $30,000 a year for 30 years would get 75 percent of their salary upon retirement, or $22,500 annually.

• Equalizing medical benefits and vacation time: "Compare the APCEA package to safety employees and what safety, council members and management receive," Cook said. According to , a lawyer hired by the union to lead salary talks with the city, "APCEA gets significantly less than management. The APCEA's position is everybody ought to get the same medical, the same amount of vacation time and the same amount of time paid vacation days take to add up."

• Compensated time for salary negotiations: the APCEA wants the same 16 hours of paid time given to the police officers' bargaining team.

• Compensation for police dispatchers as part of their retirement pension for recurrent overtime due to understaffing. "One of our dispatchers has already made the equivalent  of her annual salary as a result of forced overtime. They don't hire enough people," Phillips said, noting they normally work 13-hour shifts three days a week.

• Schedule changes: the APCEA requests a mutual-agreement protocol for work schedule changes. The union also wants members to receive notice of schedule alterations a minimum of two pay periods before an upcoming change except during an actual emergency such as the aftermath of a natural disaster. "Let's say you have a special skill and they want to move you from the day to the night shift," said Phillips. "We don't want them to change the length of the shift or the actual time period that [association members] work without two pay periods notice."

• Bereavement leave should be granted to all APCEA employees based on their current work-week shift schedule up to a maximum of 40 hours.

• Holiday pay should be based on an employee’s actual work schedule and the hours and APCEA employee puts in on a holiday. "[APCEA members] should get credit for whatever [their] regular shift is," Phillips said. "Base it on the regular work shift."

• Bilingual pay: up to 10 employees who qualify should receive $46.15 per pay period, which is the current rate paid to an unlimited number of Arcadia Police Officers Association members.

• Training pay: dispatchers, records technicians and community service officers should receive a 5 percent increase for performing training duties for a minimum of three pay periods. APOA members receive a 5 percent increase for all special assignments including field-training assignments.

• Nighttime pay increase of 2.5 percent for swing shift workers and 5 percent for graveyard shift employees.

• "Matron" pay: a 2.5 percent salary increase during any pay period in which matron duties are assigned. "Matron duty" refers to female APCEA members who have to act as jailers when a female prisoner is brought in and booked by an APD officer. "They conduct strip searches and expose themselves to assault, blood contamination, all the things that police officers do in larger municipalities like the city of Los Angeles," Phillips said.

• Tactical dispatcher/warrant desk: a 5 percent pay increase during the assignment period.

• Severance pay for all employees who have served at least one year of consecutive service amounting to one month of base salary pay and one month of medical coverage for each year of service up to five year. "APCEA currently get no severance pay if they are laid off," according to Phillips. "If they fire [City Manager] , he gets a year's pay courtesy of the city of Arcadia and our people get nothing."

• Length of contract: negotiable depending on contract terms. "If the city wants a long term deal with APCEA, they need to fulfill what we consider was a promise when the said our members are not like the general employees," Phillips said. "Now the city is saying we put you in a separate unit because your needs are different, but they've decided not to address those needs. Until those needs are addressed, why would we sign a long-term contract?"

The city manager declined to comment directly on the APCEA's contract agenda.

"The law provides us a process to meet and confer between the parties at the table," said Penman. "So even though they've elected to identify what their goals are and the things they are interested in receiving, we take our direction from the city council in terms of how we respond to that. It's best to accomplish [a salary agreement] sitting across the table as opposed to a public process."

Penman added city management is "always hopeful we can reach an agreement with [the APCEA] across the table, but if it gets to an impasse then it would be a public process."

Phillips said further contract talks will take place later this month.