As Jobs Teeter: City, Union Trade Blame

WILDWOOD — The city said it’s the union’s fault, while the union blames the city. Meanwhile, there are dozens of city employees who will likely soon lose their jobs.
The Herald has spoken with several city employees, the acting administrator, the personnel director and the head of one of the three city unions. The only thing that is sure is that everyone’s story is different.
At a June 9 Board of Commissioners meeting, Sue Fisher, a 10-year employee in the city’s Recreation Department, brought a petition signed by 352 citizens who utilize the Byrne Community Center, where she works.
The petition asked commissioners to reconsider planned layoffs of the recreation staff.
“Every single one of us got a layoff slip,” she said.
Fisher told the Herald she was not happy with the city or her union, United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2327.
“I can’t get any straight answers from anyone,” she said.
On Feb. 4, Wildwood commissioners sent letters to representatives of the three major unions that represent city employees, stating that the tax rate in Wildwood is “nearly twice that of our sister communities.” Since the city’s budget is employee-based, the solution must be employee-based, the letter said.
The letter asked the unions to reopen contract negotiations, to help create enhanced incentive separation packages, to negotiate from a perspective of employee concessions, to voluntarily schedule unpaid furlough days in 2010, and to give suggestions for budgetary savings to reduce the number of potential layoffs.
The city was able to avert layoffs for its uniformed personnel because the two unions representing them — Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 7 and the Firemen’s Mutual Benefit Association (FMBA) Local 50 — negotiated many hours with city officials, making concessions to save jobs.
“The fact is I sat down and spent hours and hours with these people on their own time to work out the difficulties in the fire department and police department with respect to layoffs and personnel,” acting Administrator Richard Deaney said.
“It’s not because they were uniformed people,” Deaney said. “It’s because they cared about the members.”
“The FOP and the FMBA made some great concessions to stay within their budget for 2010 in order to be able to avert layoffs and they are to be congratulated,” Deaney said. “But we didn’t do it in five minutes. It took many days of discussions.”
He said UAW representatives spent a total of 40 minutes in February with him. He said one female representative said in his presence, “they can do what they want, so it’s not worth us talking to them.”
“They came from North Jersey and they haven’t been back,” he said.
Sally Peter, a Wildwood resident for 35 years, said she was very glad that no police and firefighters had to be laid off.
“But to do it on the backs of the lowest paid people here, the clerical staff, is absolutely ridiculous,” she said.
“So you’re saying that we have no voice whatsoever, because we don’t have some guy backing us?” Fisher asked. “We pay our union dues and they don’t want to do nothing, so that’s on us?”
“We can’t negotiate with you,” Mayor Gary DeMarzo said.
Deaney agreed that the city can’t deal individually with any employee represented by a union.
“I can’t talk with Ms. Fisher who was just speaking to us,” he said. “She hasn’t had one union representative, hasn’t been able to get one union representative to come down here and represent her and talk to us.”
“The only way that this can be resolved is by union representation under the laws of the State of New Jersey,” Deaney stated. “And in my opinion, and it is my opinion only, the union that represents the rest of these employees doesn’t care about the few employees that are involved.”
“They took their 4 percent (contractual raise) in January, they’re going to take their 4 percent on July 1,” he said. “These other people (police and fire) gave up some of that to save some of their people and they’re working hard to save others that are not even in their union as long as they’re in their department because they care about their fellow employees.”
“Where is that union?” he wondered aloud. “You know, you say things like ‘Shame on them.’ That’s the way I feel about it right now. I have very little respect right now for the third union in this community.”
“These poor employees have nobody to represent them,” he said.
Deaney noted that he is not anti-union.
“I’ve worked with unions for 35 years,” he said. “I encouraged people to form a union in Ocean City so that I could work with them.”
UAW Local 2327 President Fran Smith told the Herald that he was last contacted by City Clerk Christopher Wood over a month ago.
“Chris said he was calling on behalf of the acting administrator (Deaney) who wanted to know if I would be interested in meeting with him to discuss ways that we might be able to avert some layoffs,” Smith said. “I told Chris that I would be very interested in discussing ways to save all of our 31 employees who received layoff notices. I told Chris to have the administrator call me.”
Smith said he never received a call.
“I haven’t received one call from a commissioner either,” he said.
He said that he was very receptive to potential givebacks as long as they were fair for all his union members. He said UAW represented 115 Wildwood employees, all of whom would have to vote on any negotiated plan.
“But I’m not going to give away the store to save one or two jobs,” he said. “As a negotiator, I have a responsibility to all the members. I am not prepared to give something up unless it benefits them all.”
Smith said the woman who visited Wildwood in February was Sandy Urban, the local’s vice president.
“Sandy met with them and saw that they had already made up their minds about subcontracting (trash collection) and she wasn’t prepared to give away the store either,” Smith said, noting that she never cut ties.
“I can guarantee that Mr. Brannen and Mr. Harshaw were not contacted by any member, except for the letter that said you were going to bring litigation against us if we don’t give you the contractual raises,” DeMarzo said. “That’s the letter we got. We acted on that letter. No problem, 4 percent January, 4 percent July. No problem. We’ll come up with our own plan. We did. That’s it,” he said, regarding the city’s layoff plan.
The original layoff list had 41 employees — 10 in the Department of Public Safety and Public Affairs, three in the Department of Revenue and Finance, and 29 in the Department of Public Works and Public Property, which includes recreation. There were 220 employees in the city.
The plan was approved by the state.
On Feb. 24, those employees received pink slips from Personnel Director Gordon Ball.
At the time, DeMarzo said the city workers were excellent overall and the commissioners don’t want to lay off anyone. It’s not a workforce problem, he said, it’s an economic problem.
Despite the situation, Deaney still had hope.
“I think we can avert a lot of those layoffs,” he said. “But I can’t do it for everybody and I can’t do it without the union stepping in an sitting down.”
He said there was still time for the union to come to him. He said the union could speak with either himself or any of the commissioners.
“I’ve got three weeks left and I’m willing to do it,” he said.
Ball told the Herald the city has been able to save four police positions and a fireman as well as three other positions thus far.
“We hope to save several others through intelocal service agreements with other towns and through some retirements,” he said.