WHEN MEMBERS of Local 1837 (City of Kirkland) found late last year that negotiations with management were making little progress, they decided to take an “in-your-face” approach. Having already voted down one contract offer, the members took their issues to a City Council meeting.

About 49 of the 133 members that make up the Local packed into the council chambers wearing large “no” buttons so that council members would have no problem knowing which attendees were Council 2 members — and where they stood.

Three members were allowed three minutes each to explain the union’s position. “It was an example of the people having the power,” says Local 1837 President Susan Greene.

“Just us going to the meeting, looking them in the eye, and giving speeches had a strong impact.”

Greene and the other speakers told the council they were dissatisfied with receiving below-market pay and being told they should do more with less even though they already had a heavy workload.

At that time, bargaining already had dragged on for months, so much so that they were turning into the longest contract negotiations in the history of the bargaining unit.

Two major factors lay behind the slow progress.

One was the City’s determination to rewrite the entire contract so that all union contracts with the City were standardized. They wanted them all to follow the same format and they wanted the language in each to be comparable with the others.

Another factor was disagreement over how a market survey to determine the pay of the Council 2 members would be conducted, and the results implemented.

“The survey was a crucial factor,” Greene says. “When it was completed we would be able to determine whether we were being paid below market rates.”

The City’s human resources department surveyed pay scales at 10 other cities, matching job descriptions as closely as possible with those at Kirkland.

The results showed that many positions at Kirkland were under the market average by 2 percent or more.

The City’s offer was to declare the market average at plus or minus 2 percent. The City said that having to pay full market rates and adding a cost-of-living allowance would eat too much into its resources.

The union countered with 1 percent below-market pay. The City would not accept that.

It was then, with negotiations threatening to go to mediation, that the union decided to attend a City Council meeting.

After the council meeting, a labor/management meeting was held to discuss workload issues. In addition, many members demonstrated their commitment to their work at the City in the way in which they coped with the emergency created by a December 14 windstorm.

“Following our attendance at the council meeting, together with the labor/management meeting and the windstorm, the City came more and more over to our side during the following bargaining sessions,” says Greene.

Finally, 18 months after negotiations began, agreement was reached on a 3-year contract that runs to December 2008.
The Local obtained pay rates that are an improvement over the previous rates. The rates will remain 1 percent below the 2005 market survey rates until the last month of the contract when the remaining 1 percent will be implemented.

The 2006 and 2007 cost-of-living allowance and market adjustments are retroactive to January 2006 when negotiations began.

“But we will start the next bargaining session at market rates,” Greene says.

“There is no doubt our meeting with the City Council was effective.”

The Local’s negotiating team consisted of: Nicci Osborn, Kyle Coulson, Karen Terrell, John Burkhalter, Tom Radford, Barry Scott.

Council 2 Director of Organizing Bill Keenan assisted with the negotiations.