Three months ago, when the Miami-Dade Commission restored a 5% concession to the county airport and sanitation employees, Chairwoman Rebeca Sosa repeatedly said that she could not give to one group and not the others when their time came.
She even used the analogy
of her children, saying she couldn’t give one milk and deny it to another.
Well, apparently, she can.
Despite voting in favor of returning the 5% additional healthcare contribution — part of 16% in concessions that employee unions agreed to in 2009, by the way — Sosa became the swing vote Tuesday in upholding Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez‘s veto on that Dec. 5 decision. Because a veto override needs a super majority of nine votes, an 8-3 decision was overturned by five of 13 votes.
Really.
Some local labor leaders are as incredulous as Ladra and the PBA has filed a lawsuit on the matter, saying that while Gimenez can veto a commission vote, he cannot as strong mayor veto the vote of the commission acting as a quasi-judicial body in an impasse hearing. Who ever heard of one party in a dispute having the power to tell a judge or mediator to blow it out his ear because he doesn’t like the decision that was reached? That’s what we got here, basically.
And the commission should have rejected the veto based on that alone, leave out the pesky little checks and balances thing, which is why everyone on that board — including the majority that voted in favor of restoring the workers’ pay, twice, by the way — are elected to represent the people.
It was a bit of a surprise to many people who expected another veto override, just like the one Gimenez got in September when he vetoed the pay restoration — which was always intended and is in the contract to go back to them on Jan. 1, 2014, by the way — to the other workers. Even the mayor’s office was not sure how it would go. One staffer indicated to Ladra Monday that they expected an override when he said Gimenez vetoed knowing “on principle.” But spokesman Fernando Figuero said he thought the mayor felt good going into the meeting.
“I’m not so sure the Mayor was so surprised since he made a very compelling argument in his veto message to the commission and he felt we would have the five votes needed,” Figueroa wrote me in response to emailed questions.
“The Mayor did say in general to the media that he was grateful to the five commissioners who voted to sustain his veto because now the administration can continue focusing on closing the current fiscal year budget gap without having to worry about the bigger gap that returning the 5% would have caused,” Figueroa added.
Some county workers and labor union leaders did not expect Commissioner Juan Zapata, who missed the original Dec. 5 meeting and maybe shouldn’t have been voting, union leaders say, unless he reviewed all 13 hours on video later (he can always say he saw it on the video afterwards). Some did not expect Sosa to switch but others suggested she has not been consistent on labor issues.
“Nobody is perfect and I make mistakes like everybody else,” Sosa told Ladra late Tuesday afternoon. “But I make my decisions on good faith and based on the benefit for all.”
She said she made three conditions exceedingly clear when she voted for the restoration on Dec. 5: (1) no dipping into reserves (2) no impact on services and (3) no line of credit to destabilize the county’s bond rating. She said she had to change her mind when she was told people would be laid off and parks might go without regular cleaning.
“I know it’s a sacrifice but everybody is sacrificing,” Sosa told me. “We did say they were going to get it back when the economy improves and I am hoping that they will have it in this coming year’s budget. We want this restored in the budget we get in July.
Zapata and Sosa were joined by Vice Chair Lynda Bell and Commissioners Steve “El Bobo” Bovo and Sally Heyman in voting against the veto override.
The only one who changed her vote, however, was Sosa.
She had originally voted two weeks ago to restore the five percent that most county employees have been contributing toward group group healthcare — this is in addition to their own healthcare premiums, by the way — but said Tuesday that she couldn’t move forward with that plan if it would cost dozens of jobs and cuts in services and public works, as Gimenez warned in what has become his go-to scare tactic: the increasingly common doom and gloom scenario.
“She believed the house of horrors laid out by the mayor,” said Terry Murphy, a former aide to former Commissioner Natacha Seijas who now works as a consultant for labor unions.
More than 100 employees would have to be laid off, Gimenez threatened. Yeah, I know, that wasn’t it. These people were willing to fire firefighters and librarians months ago. It was the sidewalks that wouldn’t get poured and the grass that wouldn’t get cut, oh my! These would be the harsh consequences if his veto was overturned in order to make up the $56 million hole that the pay restoration would cause, the mayor said.
But think about that in reverse for a minute? Because it is a $56 million hole regardless. Right now, as it stands, it is a $56 million hole in the homes of some 25,000 employees — your neighbors, your friends, the parents of the kids your kid goes to school with, the guy who lets you merge in front of him on 836, the woman who sits next to your mother on the bus. And it is $56 million taken out of their pockets and basically lost in a $4.4 billion operating budget that includes paying millions to consultant “friends” for projects that never see the light of day.
Really.
Ladra thinks a few of the commissioners seemed to be on the same page, the one titled “C’mon! There has to be another way to find money in this huge budget!” Commissioners Bruno Barreiro, Jose “Pepe” Diaz, Audrey Edmonson, Barbara Jordan, Jean Monestime, Dennis Moss, Javier Souto and Xavier “Commissioner Mayor Sir” Suarez stuck to their original position on the employee pay and voted to override the Gimenez veto.
At one point, Diaz said we may need to look at having a “smaller workforce,” which I agree with but hopefully we start from the top and not the bottom, from the highest floors of the Stephen P. Clark Center and not the neighborhood libraries.
In fact, whatever happened to the promised efficiencies that the mayor’s initial changes, including the merging of departments — which resulted in the five deputy mayors with huge salaries, remember? — and other changes were supposed to bring? Did we really save anything? How much? And where did it go?
Ladra asked these questions Tuesday but did not get the answers yet. They may be good answers to have before bargaining units for the 11 separate unions meet again with the negotiator at the county — who is, by the way, the mayor, who has already shown them that he doesn’t negotiate in good faith. While he talked about one-time bonuses for the lowest paid workers and other commissioners brought up a compromise of 2% or 3%, union leaders do not feel like it’s a compromise.
“He takes a loaf of bread away from them, gives them half a loaf back and expects everybody to smile? How is that a compromise,” Murphy asks.
Union leaders and many county employees do not trust Gimenez. And they cited several unfair labor practices complaints and a Florida Public Employees Relations Commission ruling this month that said the county violated state law by bargaining in bad faith with the Police Benevolent Association in 2011.
And Gimenez certainly isn’t encouraged to negotiate more now because he holds all the cards — as in five-card poker.
“Gimenez and his group of five got what they wanted,” Murphy said. “I’m exhausted because you’re not dealing with intellectually honest people. There’s a political agenda here.”
“We should call him Comandante Gimenez, not Mayor Gimenez,” said PBA President John Rivera, who has long been in a battle of words with the commandan…er, mayor. “This is the American version of communism. This is a tax on employees.”
Sosa told Ladra the same thing she said to other reporters — that she hoped Gimenez got the message when she said she wanted him to negotiate for real this time. My words. Not hers. Hers were as follows.
“I told him I expect him to come back with something. I was very specific on that. The commission was very specific on that. He said today he would sit with them. Hopefully that is true,” Sosa said. “I’m willing to call a special meeting immediately.”
That would be because the next regularly scheduled commission meeting is Jan. 22.
Others are not so sure, however, that Gimenez is motivated to move from his give-nada-and-take-all position.
“The fact that they demoralized 25,000 employees by continuing to pick their pockets doesn’t even bother them,” Murphy told me. “When you’re dealing with that, when you’re not dealing with honest brokers, I don’t know how you can negotiate with that.”
Several union leaders told Ladra that Gimenez has come to the negotiations with an unmovable stance.
“I don’t think he’ll even call us,” said Rivera, who like some union leaders and county employees, expects the impasse to go right back to the commission (which, apparently, doesn’t have any teeth in this role).
“We should call him Comandante Gimenez, not Mayor Gimenez,” said Rivera, who has long been in a battle of words with the mayor, er, comandante. “This is the American version of communism. This is a tax on employees.”
“The mayor didn’t negotiate at the table and then he brought the impasse to commission,” said Martha Baker, president of the nurses’ union at Jackson Memorial Hospital, which was $100 million in the black last year and got an $830-million bond approved in November for capital improvement projects so they can now dip into that budget to restore employee salaries (more on that later).
Murphy said that different unions have suggested different ways to streamline and save money within their departments, but that the administration doesn’t want to hear about alternative solutions.
“This is such a charade. We gave him solutions on what he could do,” Murphy said, adding examples like financing the healthcare surplus. “If he wanted to solve this, he would.”
Emilio Azoy, who represents the 1,800 members of the Water and Sewer Department, echoed that.
“The union has been trying to bring some efficiencies to his attention and it has fallen on deaf ears,” Azoy told Ladra. “The bottom line is the administration never intended to negotiate. We met once and he said ‘This is my view and it’s my view or no view.'”
Why should the mayor change his approach? It’s been working for him so far.
And he indicated Tuesday that he was uncomfortable with the “recurring cost” that the 5% represents — which means what exactly for next year? And the year after that?
It seems to Ladra — and to anyone else who is watching carefully — that the economy will never improve enough to restore the workers’ pay.
Really.
Mayor Carlos Gimenez veto sticks, minority rules; now what? added by Ladra on
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Wonderful post, maintain your hard work, you’re doing it right!
There’s a hiring freeze and the county will loose more than 100 employees next year through attrition. So it’s not true that there will have to be layoffs.
The Mayor referred to the 5% tax elimination as a raise. Giving back what you took is not a raise.
The 5% tax was taken as a contribution to county worker’s health care insurance. Instead it went to a rainy day fund none of which has been spent. In other words, there was no emergency or honest justification for the tax. It was simply to increase county coffers.
The mayor says he streamlined the county (by cutting the number of departments from 50 to 25). Not one person, including directors was laid off or got a pay cut. Each department will have double the management. It cost the county to rearrange personnel and departments, the opposite of savings.
There was a 5% increase in property values in MDC last year alone. The mayor budgets on a worst case scenario and would have us believe that tax collections are not increasing but they are.
The mayor claims that the priority for MDC citizens is no tax cut. This may be true, but where is the evidence ? When there were announcements to cut libraries, meals on wheels or fire departments, there was public outrage. This would seem to indicate that services, not taxes are the priority for the taxpayers. If you ask someone if they want lower taxes, they always say yes, but if you ask what do they want to sacrifice, it’s always “something that doesn’t affect me”.
Last Sunday on This Week In South Florida on local10, the mayor wa asked won’t the reinstatement of the 5% tax be good for our economy, the mayor sidestepped the question and called it “taking money from the taxpayers and putting it into someone else’s pocket”. This is a compound dishonesty:
1. The county workers are taxpayers, they are not “someone else”. Notice the mayor consistently implies that his employees aren’t community members. Does he think they all commute from mars or is it because he’s trying to pit us against each other ?
2. What is an economy if not putting money into each other’s pockets? Isn’t that what happens every time someone buys something ? It would appear the mayor is pretending that he doesn’t really understand what the word economy means in this context in order to distract from a very good question.
3, The answer to the question is obviously yes. Most county employees had to tighten their belts when the got the pay cuts. That means less money for restaurants, clothes, lawn guys, or whatever. Putting more money in to our economy will mean more jobs.
Im hoping and wishing to win the lottery so i can tell the county to shove it!
I work as a correctional officer, i am going to retire in about a year. the county is currently having yoga classes for the inmates at metro west detention center. i wonder how much of the taxpayers money it cost to bring in a yoga teacher once a week. as a county employee i cannot afford to take yoga lessons. the county can save money by having the inmates mow and trim the trees in the median of the county roads. how many millions does the county pay these private companies to do a job that county inmates would be glad to do. you wont have to pay them, just deduct some time off their sentence.
God bless this banana republic where liars and corporations rule the county. Greed for power and the almighty dollar will destroy us all.
We will probably get better services from the county if we take the layoffs and service cuts.
Right now you have 26K employees that are not planning on delivering excellence. You get what you pay for.
How many employees have retired and not been replaced? The remaining county employees are expected to pick up the extra work while making less money.
I’ve gone from hard working employee to disgruntled slow-motion employee. The system made me this way.
Thanks,
Lazy county do-nothing employee
Kudos to Barbara Jordan who slapped the Mayor around sin mano (without hands). She pointed out the obvious, the Mayor has no intention of stopping this 5% as seen with his actions of not finding any remedy.
I watched the entire meeting and was appalled by Rebecca Sosa’s behavior during the meeting.
It seemed like she was an attorney examining her client, just as it is done in court trials prior to cross examination. It appeared she was walking and leading the Mayor towards the scare tactic question and answers. It Looked like it had been rehearsed before, as it was executed to perfection.
As the Madam Chair Rebecca Sosa also seemed as she was not allowing effective communication by the other commisioners who were in favor of overriding the Mayors veto. She interupted the commisioners speaking who were in the middle of making strong convincing points in the unfairness of continuing the 5% deduction.
Did anyone who watch the meeting pick up on this?
Remember this year county employees were given the choice to opt out of the health plan but were informed that the 5% contibution would still have to be made. And don’t forget there was the raise in copayments in leiu of premium raises. God forbid you get sick and require multiple medications or additional treatments. The public seems to forget that its not just the 5% contribution. Its also 5% night differential pay, and the 3% FRS contibution, the time and half for federal holidays in which employees are now mandated to work or have to use acccured vacation time, as holiday time is no longer given. When has a government employee ever been required to work a Federal holiday with out compensation. The loss of merit raises and longevity checks. Employees are constantly being told to do more with less and now to do more for less. Would you want to go to work to give 100% when you know your employor is only going to pay you 85% in return.
Perro….
Being a “public” employee does come with a paycheck, pension and insurance… However it does come with a lot more public scrutiny. Does your neighbors and friends get to look at your paycheck to see what you make (family income if both work for county), do you have to get written permission to work a second job to make ends meet and have that income also shared with your neighbors, or if you were good with investments and have 3 rental properties (even with partners), you have to request for outside employment and disclose that income, If you get into a fight with your spouse does your employer get notified and told about your personal business? God forbid if your get stopped for suspicion of DUI, or any police contact for that matter, does your employer get notified and updated. According to the ethics training we HAVE to take, if you were to ask a county employee for guidance or a recomendation to help you deal with the county we can be charged, fined, disciplined and fired. Being a “Public” employee may have some advantages over “private” employees, but it comes at a price also with a lot more rules and regulations and the loss of privacy 24/7. For the record I pay $600 a month in premiums for me and my 2 kids health insurance and that does not include the 5% that goes back to the county…..not to pay health insurance since employees that have no medical coverage also give the county 5%. The mayor does not give the residents fair and accurate information…. He seems to enjoy making the employees appear to be evil and greedy. It’s hard to delivery excellence everyday when your employer has so little respect for you.
From Eye on Miami
County Commission vote on 5%: Hypocrisy Unites Them. Guest Blog by Norma Rae
Yesterday Carlos Migoya admitted that none of his senior staff at Jackson contribute 5% of their salary, like all the other employees at the hospital. He said he would implement the 5% policy for his staff on January 1, 2014. We do not think that is right. Rather than wrongfully taxing the senior staff, we just want to get rid of this wrongful income tax for everyone. The unions are not about tearing other people down to reduce their earnings by equivalent amounts – that smacks of communism. We would like everyone to enjoy the fruits of their labor, and take home their entire paycheck. We just want to be given that simple dignity. We don’t want Migoya to start taking money from his senior people. Just quit taking it from everyone at Jackson.
According to a September 30, 2013 official county document, most of the Commissioners who voted to impose the 5% payroll contribution on county workers don’t ask their own employees to make the 5% contribution. And, most of the Commissioners who supported the county workers have been deducting the 5% from their employees. That’s just not right. We don’t think anyone on the commission staff should have to give up 5% of their earnings.
We want the Commissioners who supported us yesterday to quit deducting the 5% from your staff. Please stop taking the 5% from your employees, Commissioners Jordan, Monestime, Barreiro, Moss, and Souto. And, we do not want the hypocrites who voted to deduct the 5% from our paychecks to take it from their employees. We are fine with the fact that you treat your immediate workers fairly and give them the dignity of taking home their entire paycheck. Don’t start penalizing your workers just because you are being exposed for being duplicitous. Reform your ways. Treat all of us with the same dignity.
The hypocrites: Commissioner Heyman (the biggest hypocrite), Lynda Bell (who’s chief of staff drives a Mercedes), Zapata (who attacks county workers in the press) and Bovo (consultant to Dade Medical Scam College) do not currently deduct the 5% from their employees’ paychecks. And we don’t have a problem with that. The 5% income tax is not right. We support them for treating their employees fairly. But, why can’t they treat everyone else that works for the county the same? Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy. These commissioners need to learn that integrity is not a four-letter word. It is OK to be consistent with your policies.
Wow. Love the comments. Keep them coming.
Daisy, I am checking into that. So far, it appears that at least 9 of the 13 commissioners have their staff “opted out” of the contribution, as the charter allows (so does the county attorney’s staff, by the way, and the Clerk of Courts). But at least two of those commissioners seem to be making the contribution through their office budget, sparing their employees but still putting in their part. I am still confirming that and checking on the rest.
Regarding the 3% raise for Sosa’s office. She confirmed that herself to me yesterday. In all fairness, her staff has probably also gotten a lot more work since she became chair. And she said she did it during the budget process, though I hardly think that makes it okay.
Still, I understand. She is the one who said “Everybody is sacrificing.” She should apply that fairly.
As for the possibility of having this resolved by next budget cycle. I say it’s 50-50. But you guys in labor are doing a terrible job of getting your message across and showing the community — as well as the elected officials — who you really are.
It’s an uphill battle.
Love, Ladra
These people want to balance the budget on the backs of 26K county employees. Meanwhile we live in a county populated by 2.5 million residents. Not sure what that number goes down to as actual homeowners but I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot more than 26K. People of Dade County need to wake up. If they think that by saving a few shekels they’re going to live better, they’re in for a big surprise. For every county employee that’s getting screwed, there are two that are less motivated to do their job. Careful what u wish for.
Wow you county employees really have no clue what’s going on in the private sector. You are lucky you only got a 5% pop (after getting a raise and having a VERY NICE pension and benefits package)out here in the real world people have gotten hammered by 20 and even 50% (No Pension and if their lucky Insurance) if they are lucky enough to have a job or business still.
If you don’t like your job or what your getting paid go ahead and quit and find a better one. If a better one is out there?
You obviously have no clue about the gross mismanagement of your tax money. Youll be the first one to complain about county employees who go to work every day to keep dade county functional. Yet your completly unaware of the multi millions the county wastes on consultants. A few miilion in a 4.4 Billion dollar budget is nothing. But youll be the first to complain when It takes too long for a Police Officer or Firemen to come and help your family. The quality of life in dade county in going down the drain because of gimenez’s own political agenda. Save the average tax payer a few dollars at the expense of longer response times for Police and Fire. Your truly an arrogant individual.
This mayor came into power with Norman Braman’s personal vendetta/political blessing. He has been attacking employee pay and benefits ever since. The 5% is just a small portion that is a prime example of his disdain for employees. Yet, he did not touch his old friends (fire). At the same time he said that there was no room for employee raises, he gave his inner sanctum fantastic ones. He has used “fiscal emergency” to essentially bypass contractual law. Decades of union negotiations have been obliterated at his hand. The employees voted (in ignorance) to help balance the budget with what was supposed to be temporary pay losses due to his threat of layoffs and firings. Many of those same employees campaigned for and voted in this monarch (can you see now?). He not only reneged on his word, he imposed more burdens (an extra 4% health care ‘contribution’). He took 12 holidays (about 4%). He deferred merit raises for a year (about 4%). He took half of night differential (about 5%). Employees have had no contractual raises since he has come into office (average about 2% per year since March 2011). He made high risk employee’s start paying into their retirements (3%) bypassing years of negotiations which employees previously conceeded pay for that benefit. There is much more. So Perro Caliente, county employees know what being ‘hammered’ feels like. They chose these unheralded and usually thankless and disrespected jobs over your “real world” for the benefits that he is systematically decimating. They still have to pay bills, feed their families and pay taxes with a lot less after being ‘hammered’ them hard and fast. El Comandante is a good politician. His ‘five’ make him strong. Sally Heyman, Lynda Bell, Juan Zapata and Esteban Bovo always vote against the PBA (check the records). Barbara Jordan, Audrey Edmonson, Dennis Moss and Rebeca Sosa usually flounder. It really is ridiculous. They gave themselves raises while they said the budget was in a hole and the general public lets them slide (slither). No one cares about ethics in this county anymore since his regime. The Port, baseball stadium, football stadium and now a soccer stadium while they say their broke. Supreme BS.
What they are doing harkens back to the reason why unions were created in the first place. I only hope that they and their families get the exact same consideration that they have given county employees. Wake up.
Please try not to be as ignorant as you sound on these issues. As if you would not fight for your benefits if they were taken away from you without cause.
It has become apparent that the Mayor is not a honest broker in this situation. He has taken the gloves off and is intent on having things his way. Why is it that AVMED is allowed to act as a monopoly. There was a time when other insurance providers were allowed to compete for our business. Would’nt that send a message that the Administration and the mayor want the best for the employees.
Commissioner Sosa has a record of casting hot and cold votes. I’m not suprised at her vote.
This situation will surely end in a court room.
Everybody that works for Rebeca Sosa has received a 3% salary increase and Ms. Sosa received a 6% salary increase for being a teacher at Lindsey Hopkins(TREMENDA BOTELLA) can anyone follow her to see if she actually goes to work. Regarding the cruises she goes 3 times a year with Royal Caribbean she pays the lowest fare and as soon as she boards the boat she gets an upgrade to the most expensive suite on the boat. It has been confirmed but nobody wants to investigate this. Can somebody call an american FBI agent to investigate this. Please
The “flip flop” of the year award goes out to……. Rebecca Sosa! (Unanimous)
It is not hard to scare the leader of the pact.She always wants to be elected without opposition and has been able to do so up to now. She always speaks with a forked tongue and just shows she cares so much! in one word she is a HYPOCRITE and gives a flying Walenda who she runs over. The only thing she wants for sure is the multiple cruises she takes with the family every year, and we wonder who pays for them?
Hello, Elaine. Short and sweet. Here is one way to uncover the hypocracy of some of our commissioners. While Sally Heyman and Linda Bell voted against the return of the 5% contribution to county employees, none of the staff members for either commissioner contibrutes 5% as required of other employees. A quick public records request would make that obvious. Just saying.
The problem I am having with all of this, the County employees is getting penalized for something we did not create. The Mayor is using County Employees only to bail out the Government when this should be as a whole. Raise Taxes because it everybody responsible to share the burden and not just the county employees.
I am a county employee and are we ever going to get our 5 percent back and what about Holidays coming back in September of next year. Is that a lost hope also and why is the Mayor so hard on County Employees
Thanks for the kind article. My heart sank when I saw where this woman was going. They have disdain for their employees, good employees. I’ve been with the county 29 years and this is a terrible place to be near the end of my career. I have fewer benefits now than when I started in 1984. Going without the five percent has certaininly caused me hardship.
This is unreal! I still don’t know why anyone has said anything about MDPD wearing brown and getting a huge fine, and the fact that a merge with Corrections and fire (like BSO) would save millions. I guess allot of people have their hand involved…. Straight up Bull! I joined the county because of all the benefits, now they have been taken away. No holidays,FRS and insurance contribution, and I have to risk my life everyday??? just because you do not want to raise taxes (around $25.00 a year.) But at the end of the this will serve us as a lesson learned, VOTE WISELY in the future!!! stay safe….