deals<\/a> included furloughs, and city officials say it makes no sense for public safety workers to take furloughs.<\/p>\nUnless the city wants to fundamentally shift staffing models for public safety, forcing employees to take furloughs could actually cost the city money. That\u2019s because to maintain staffing levels, a furloughed worker getting regular pay would have to be replaced by a worker getting paid overtime.<\/p>\n
The savings the city will get from the unpaid worker furloughs during the first year of those other deals \u2014 the new fiscal year that started July 1 \u2014 nearly covers the cost of the 2% raises and other benefits those employees get.<\/p>\n
And furloughs during the second year soften the impact of 3.5% raises that employees will get during the second year of those other deals.<\/p>\n
Because the city doesn\u2019t want public safety workers to take furloughs that would counteract raises, it\u2019s\u00a0offering their unions contracts that contain no pay raises in fiscal 2027 \u2014 and possibly fiscal 2028. That\u2019s a key reason no deals have been reached.<\/p>\n
The city is offering police officers a four-year deal with no pay raises in either of the first two years, said Jared Wilson, president of the San Diego Police Officers Association, on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Wilson said union leaders were ready this spring to accept a deal like that and present it to members for approval \u2014 but before the deal was finalized, city officials asked for a concession on the pay raises officers get at 20 years.<\/p>\n
Wilson said city negotiators want to eliminate those 5% raises because such hikes have only a marginally positive impact on officer retention. While city officials have suggested replacing the hikes with a longevity-based raise at 10 years, Wilson said the union opposes changing the 20-year incentive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will not accept any contract that cuts pay to any member,\u201d Wilson said in a letter to his members.<\/p>\n
And shortly after the contract expired June 30, city officials eliminated a long-time fringe benefit called discretionary leave for all officers. It\u2019s essentially an extra week of vacation.<\/p>\n
When union leaders quickly threatened to sue, the city retreated, Wilson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur attorneys believe this action is illegal, unprecedented, contrary to past practice and is a hostile action by the city against our members,\u201d said Wilson, suggesting the move was an attempt by the city to gain leverage in the negotiations.<\/p>\n
Wilson said the tough bargaining is\u00a0one reason staff morale is particularly low.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the most challenging contract I\u2019ve been involved in negotiating in the last decade,\u201d he said Thursday. \u201cI\u2019m deeply concerned about the future of our Police Department.\u201d<\/p>\n
Connor Robbins, head of the lifeguards union, said the uncertainty of an expired contract is a problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m disappointed we haven\u2019t finalized our contract with the city,\u201d Robbins said Thursday. \u201cEach day without a contract provides uncertainty to our lifeguards who continue to show up for work and provide a high level of public safety during this especially busy season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robbins said his union is being offered a three-year contract, the same length as the city labor unions that already have contracts \u2014 and one year less than the deal being offered to police.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the firefighters union declined to say whether the city had offered its members a three-year or four-year contract.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are still at the table for a fair and equitable contract,\u201d said the spokesperson, Crane Friedman. \u201cNegotiations remain ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor negotiations between San Diego and the city\u2019s police officers have become unusually hostile in recent weeks, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[138,181,23,205,100,13,74,76,75,1696],"class_list":["post-393331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-local-politics","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}