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One labor contract down, four more to go

By Brian Lockhart
Staff Writer

March 2, 2006

NORWALK -- The long-delayed firefighters' contract may be settled, but Mayor Richard Moccia said yesterday that he has a daunting task ahead in negotiations with other city unions.

The city must begin negotiations in June with the police, clerical workers and a union of custodians, engineers and road maintenance workers. In addition, the city must start negotiating again with firefighters because their contract approved Tuesday expires June 30.

Fire Union President Kenneth Hall said that tonight his union members are scheduled to convene to elect the bargaining team for the new labor talks with the city in the coming weeks. "If you think I had challenges in the first hundred days, now I've got four," said Moccia, whose 176-vote defeat of Democratic incumbent Alex Knopp in November has been attributed to a disgruntled fire union's endorsement.

"You hope you can get them all settled by July 1, but dealing with four unions is not always possible," Moccia said.

Democratic Councilman Herbert Grant, chairman of the Personnel Committee and former vice president of human resources for a variety of Fortune 500 and health-care companies, said normally negotiators try to settle before a contract's expiration date or, at the worst, within a year.

"It's rare you get a case (like) the firemen's contract," Grant said. "You try not to do that." The firefighters' contract had expired in 2002.

The Knopp administration took more than a year to reach agreements with the police union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, whose members include the city's custodians, road maintenance workers and engineers. It took more than two years to settle with the Norwalk Municipal Employees Association, which represents about 120 clerical staff member.

Moccia acknowledged the looming quartet of expiring contracts was one reason he and the council's Republican minority was pushing so hard for the Common Council's Democratic majority to approve his offer to the fire department.

"You don't want to go into June not having this one settled. If it wasn't, we'd go into arbitration, and what would that have meant?" Moccia said.

Firefighters ratified the contract Feb. 4 and the council had until March 16 to act.

The council's Personnel Committee discussed the details with Moccia and his negotiating team last week and forwarded the document to the full council for action Tuesday. But over the weekend, Democrats told the mayor they planned to send it back to the committee for further review.

Ultimately that did not happen and the council voted 13-0, with one abstention and one member absent.

"Clearly this needed to end," Council President Michael Coffey, a Democrat, said yesterday. "The labor impasse went on too long for many of us on the council."

Grant, however, says "there was not any pressure on the Democratic members to look at a time frame. That wasn't the issue" with the firefighters' contract.

The major concern, he said, was the inclusion of a controversial Deferred Retirement Option Plan that allows members with 25 years of service to put 85 to 90 percent of their retirement benefits into a separate account for up to five years while still on the job.

The appeal of such plans is that they allow municipal employees to accrue a lump sum of money for when they begin retirement. But a DROP plan Knopp offered the police proved more expensive for the city, leading the former mayor to reject the firefighters' request for a similar plan. When Moccia included one in his proposed contract, Democrats spent more time questioning the offering to ensure it was not negative to taxpayers.

Coffey admitted that, having approved the fire DROP, it will be more challenging for the city to turn down other unions' requests in the coming weeks.

"The negotiating team will have a difficult time explaining why certain labor forces should receive certain benefits while others shouldn't," Coffey said.

Bob Vingo, chairman of the Norwalk Municipal Employees Association, said last night that he is uncertain whether a DROP will be appropriate for his membership.

"Those guys (fire and police) retire much earlier than we do. And with our particular union, we can accumulate 35 years of service and get 70 percent of our pension," Vingo said. "It's six of one, half dozen of another."

Still, Vingo said, the DROP debate has spurred plenty of interest among city employees.

"Everybody's looking at this now wondering how these things really work," Vingo said. "It's an interesting concept, I will say that."