AFSCME Local 199 became the fourth union to settle with Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” 
Gimenez when the administration and the union’s negotiating team reached an agreement Thursday.
“We’re done. We’re finished,” said Andy Madtes, president of the union that represents the largest number of employees at about 9,000.
“We got all of our concessions back, including the 1 percent pay cut that we took back in 2011. We’ll get that in the third year of the contract,” Madtes said, adding that the healthcare savings saved 200 jobs.
“It restores all of the concessions that our members gave up in 2009,” Madtes told Ladra shortly after the meeting ended. “They have now been able to recoup all the concessions they gave up in the last four years. And it will put money back into their pockets to some degree.”
AFSCME joined the aviation union, the solid waste union and the professional and supervisory workers union in shaking hands with the mayor on the tentative agreements. Each must be ratified by a vote of the membership, but the leadership’s excitement for the new contracts indicates that they will be.
Gimenez also seemed happy.
“With approximately 9,000 employees represented by AFSCME 199, roughly 15,000 Miami-Dade County employees are now covered by this tentative agreement that allows for a cost of living adjustments based on the excess in growth of property tax rolls,” the mayor said in a statement regarding the latest agreement.
“It also includes the option to choose the SELECT plan, a new insurance option which can potentially save Miami-Dade County approximately $15 million per year in healthcare costs,” Gimenez said.
“Once again, I want to thank the leadership of Local 199 for joining our GSA, Solid Waste and Aviation unions in sitting down with my administration to craft responsible solutions to our budgetary challenges,” the mayor added.
“I know that working together, we can all find innovative ways to responsibly manage Miami-Dade County’s future employee costs while remaining committed to ensuring that our government is more efficient in its use of hard earned taxpayer dollars.”
The three year contract means that the union doesn’t have to come back until 2017 to renegotiate — and it includes no health care increases for three years — and that is a huge deal, Madtes said.
“Our members are whole and will now be able to budget their lifestyles,” he said.
One of the concessions returned is he $38 biweekly flex pay that was offered employees in 2008 to offset increased healthcare premiums. Employees who decide to stay with their current health care plan can use those funds to offset the additional costs they will have. Employees who go to the new “select” plan could save $1,300 to $1,600 in family coverage costs, Madtes added.
“Now they can use the flex pay for what it was for — to put it toward the premium,” Madtes said.
“This is one of the most unique contracts we’ve ever been a part of because we got back concessions and saved jobs at the same time,” he said, adding that there will still be some layoffs that could not be averted. “More concessions were required for us to save everybody. I still don’t know what that number is.”
The union could not budge on certain concessions — like an extension of furlough or unpaid vacation days — because a survey done months ago showed the membership would not support it, Madtes said.
“I was very clear and I said to the mayor on certain things I could not budge on,” he said, bringing up the furloughs as a deal breaker weeks ago. “We just didn’t want to do it anymore. We told him we’ll take our chances at impasse.”
Apparently, the mayor did not want the unions to pack commission chambers during the budget hearings or 
to take his chances with the county commission. “I think the mayor also took into account what happened during the 5% turnaround,” Madtes said, referring to the veto override earlier this year when commissioners restored the 5% additional salary cut for healthcare costs.
“I think he decided he did not want to put the fate into their hands,” Madtes said.
He couldn’t say what brought Gimenez around 180 degrees to a completely different mindset with the unions, one in which he negotiated rather than drove his plan down their throats.
Gimenez has gone as far as to ask for monthly meetings with union leaders, Madtes said. “So we can work together to make the county a better place for its citizens. He basically told me he wants to work more closely with labor and not have an adversarial position.”
The new mayoral position came out of the blue and several people have said that perhaps someone in the mayor’s inner circle was telling him that fighting with labor would help him with his poll numbers and that someone (read: lobbyist Jorge Luis Lopez) doesn’t have the same access he used to.
Employees are wondering what the heck happened.
“They’re a little nervous, too. Asking why is his attitude changing. Thinking it has to mean something,” Madtes told Ladra about the membeship.
“We’re just going to have to trust it. We’re restoring a lot of people’s lives. Let’s hope it holds.”
Fourth union settles with Miami-Dade Mayor Gimenez added by Ladra on
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