Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos “Cry Wolf” Gimenez got another labor victory Thursday when the largest group of county workers, members of the 
AFSCME Local 199, voted overwhelmingly — with 97 percent approval — to ratify a new agreement with his administration.
Gimenez was proud of the achievement — the third agreement with labor unions signed so far. Two more were being voted on Thursday.
Commissioners will have a special meeting Friday to approve the contract agreements at a meeting where the pay and benefits of non-union workers — who are not covered by these agreements and who may even still be paying the 5% most workers got back — may be advocated by some (more on that later).
The mayor, as he has done with the other agreements, issued a statement to crow about the new contract which he said “contains ways for Miami-Dade County to manage its future employee costs while allowing for savings to be used to restore and enhance services.
“In addition to tying cost of living adjustments to future growth in our property ta rolls, the agreement also gives AFSCME Local 199’s approximate 9,000 members the option to choose the new SELECT Health Plan. This will save approximately $15 million in employee health care costs for the county and our taxpayers,” Gimenez said in a statement that was likely carefully prepared and edited.
“My administration looks forward to working with all our employee bargaining units. Together we can ensure that Miami-Dade County is on a path toward future financial stability.”
Not in his statement is a 1% salary cut that employees will get back in 2017 — or 2016, but only if county revenues increase by 12.5%.
Yeah. Okay. Forgive Ladra for being a little cynical but this is the same guy who four months ago was proposing 10% salary cuts across the board and wanted to keep enforcing concessions from five years ago that were scheduled to “snap back” for employees. Me thinks that he has learned something about creative accounting from the Miami Heat — who many think played with their books so they didn’t have to share profits with the county — and has no intention of reaching the thresholds for the COLAs or the 1%.
Read related story: Carlos Gimenez wants 10% less pay for workers, other cuts
“I’m not holding my breath on that,” AFSCME President Andy Madtes told Ladra, saying it was not really an issue. The union polled members to see what they should fight for the most before negotiating a three-year contract that gives them what they really wanted: restoration of holiday pay and elimination of furloughs.
“And the fact of the matter is that about 80 percent of our membership are going to be getting raises in the next three years because of their steps,” Madtes said.
“When the commission decided on July 15th that the millage wasn’t going to be increased, that there were not going to be the new revenues, well we were very concerned about it. I continued to have a dialogue and said there were certain things I can’t agree with you on,” he said of his conversation with Gimenez. He said the mayor didn’t want to “fight anymore.”
Apparently, neither did the employees. The overwhelming slam dunk approval was approved by 1,948 members on Wednesday, while only 67 said no. While there are 8,000 employees represented by the union (not the 9,000 the mayor reported), only 3,500 are dues-paying members who can vote.Madtes said that there was a little bit of fatigue impacting the vote. But people were also glad to be getting what they always wanted, which is what they gave up five years ago.
“It’s a little bit of both. Most people were very thankful that they got everything back and restored. particularly their furloughs and holiday pay, more than anything it was furlough days,” he told Ladra. “We delivered on what they asked for. “We always said, ‘We don’t need more. We just want back what we lost.’
“I’m not trying to pound my chest here because what we gained was what they had lost. But finally, they have some stability in their lives now.”
The $15 million in savings that allowed this are contingent on a majority of the membership switching over to the SELECT plan. But Madtes said that would not be a difficult thing to achieve.
“When you explain the health plan and people saw that their doctors were there and their hospitals were there, they were pleased with it,” Madtes told Ladra, adding that more than 90 percent of the members’ doctors are on the plan and that 28 of 45 hospitals include “all the good hospitals” are in the network. He added that some employees who pay for family coverage might save $1,300 to $1,600 a year.
“Why wouldn’t you move? We’re not taking less benefits. That’s unequivocally untrue,” said Madtes, who sometimes seems to have become one of the mayor’s fans overnight.
“All in all the contract is a good contract and the benefits level is outstanding.”
Read related story: Mayor Gimenez more friendly toward unions in face of recall
But you might be more friendly, too, if you got everything you asked for.
“The most significant thing is that we got holiday pay back and all the things we had given up and it’s for three years so employes can budget their lives accordingly,” Madtes said. “And that we are still able to save 50 to 60 of our civilian police employees getting laid off.”
Not all the labor leaders are as eager to find an olive branch.
The supervisors union — which represents two units but is one union — also ratified the agreement reached with the administration and the unions representing the aviation workers and the solid waste employees were voting Thursday on their respective contracts.
But there are still no agreements yet with the Fire union, the union representing Water and Sewer, the union representing transit workers or the PBA, which represents the police and could be the trickiest of them of all, even though the administration gave in to the PBA demand that it change its chief negotiator because he represented the union a decade ago.
Commissioners are likely to get a report on these ongoing negotiations when they meet Friday to approve the contracts that are ratified.
If all five employee units that have agreements with the Gimenez Administration come before them (that means the two in question today would be ratified), the projected savings are $26 million for this coming fiscal year, according to mayoral spokesman Michael Hernandez.
“If all ten bargaining units were to agree and ratify the agreements, the projected savings for Miami-Dade County would rise up to approximately $65 million,” he said.
Miami-Dade’s big union, Carlos Gimenez reach agreement added by Ladra on
View all posts by Ladra →
