At the March 9, 2021 Legislative Meeting, City Council put forward the version of the collective bargaining ordinance it proposes to be voted on at the public hearing on April 17, 2021. During that meeting, City Council made significant breaks from the staff’s proposal for the ordinance, offering amendments to the staff’s ordinance that grants employees much more comprehensive rights.
These proposed amendments were the direct result of collaboration between and lobbying by IUPA, IAFF and AFSCME representatives and legal counsel. The specific areas where City Council agreed with the unions and provided much more substantive rights include:
- Expanding the scope of bargaining beyond mere wages and benefits, to include “hours, and other terms and conditions of employment, including procedures to resolve employee grievances, but excluding discipline”;
- Removing overreaching by the city manager, for instance by not allowing him to have the “sole and final determination” about who would be a managerial employee or supervisor and taking away the city’s ability to withdraw recognition of an exclusive bargaining unit;
- Expanding the bargaining unit for police to include Sergeants and Lieutenants, and for fire to include Captains and Lieutenants;
- Requiring that the exclusive bargaining agents have a say in termination of the Labor Relations Administrator and periodic review of the ordinance; and
- Rejecting the city staff’s impasse recommendation of nonbinding mediation and providing an impasse procedure proposed by the unions that would involve mediation, then fact-finding and a recommendation before City Council to resolve the impasse.
IUPA, IAFF and AFSCME will continue to collaborate to identify other potential revisions in the ordinance prior to the final public hearing on the ordinance on April 17, 2021.
