Negotiators for the Vancouver firefighters union want an 8.2 percent wage increase immediately, plus a 2 percent increase in 2011.
Such a stance leaves the rational local resident asking: Do these union negotiators understand the national economic crisis and their city’s lingering budget calamity? Do they realize their employer — the city of Vancouver, acting on behalf of taxpayers — was forced to cut $14 million from the general fund last year? Do they know the union’s most recent demands would cost the city $3.2 million?
The answers to each of those questions is yes. Union negotiators do not live in a vacuum; they know exactly what’s going on. This is how negotiations go and what folks do. They ask for the unreasonable and then try to meet somewhere in the middle. They ask for more than they expect because that’s the way the world works with any kind of bargaining. Like car shopping.
Such a strategy was indirectly confirmed in these comments from Mark Johnston, president of the International Association of Firefighters, Local 452: “Just because you ask for something doesn’t mean you get it, and the process is still playing out.” Johnson also said in a Wednesday Columbian story by Andrea Damewood: “Nothing’s been set in stone yet. We still have plenty of room to offer proposals and counterproposals.”
This supposed flexibility has not been overly apparent to date. The 171-member firefighters union and the city have reached an impasse, and, barring further developments, the matter will be taken before a state arbitrator. The city is asking the firefighters union to accept no raises (a common sacrifice in the private sector these days) and increase contributions for health care premiums from 10 to 15 percent (far below percentages paid in the private sector).
Another deadlock has occurred in the city’s negotiations with the eight-member Police Commanders, Office and Professional Employees International Union, Local 11, which would maintain the status quo on raises. The union has scheduled arbitration for Thursday. The firefighters union arbitration has yet to be scheduled.
Vancouver’s taxpayers have ample reason to be concerned about three basic problems:
This me-first, me-only stance by the firefighters union might be just a manifestation of how unions operate (indeed, a union’s sole function is to demand money and benefits for its members at the exclusion of all other concerns) but it’s an awful way to build respect and admiration in the community. Making boom-time demands during bust times makes no sense to local residents.
It’s high time to change one absurdity in the state’s labor laws. As Damewood reported Wednesday, in this case the city’s ability to pay is not to be considered in the arbitration process. Instead, the arbitrator considers cost of living and comparison of wages, and conditions of departments of similar size on the West Coast. Such a narrow focus excludes a vital stakeholder in this whole process: the taxpayers. The city’s legislative agenda this year includes asking lawmakers to allow public-union negotiations to include a government’s ability to pay. Let us hope that change is made.
It’s also high time for unions to stop automatically demanding that the tax revenue pie be made bigger, when in fact it’s shrinking. It’s wrong to posit that overburdened taxpayers should be gouged for more money. Johnston, for example, suggested that Vancouver institute the city B&O tax that was eliminated in the 1990s. That’s ridiculous. Intimating that more taxes should be extracted from struggling local businesses through a B&O tax proves the fundamental reality that the unions are concerned only about themselves.
Wouldn’t it be great if taxpayers could wield more clout in this whole process? After all, they’re paying for it.
