By BECKY KISER
Hays Post
Hays city commissioners will be presented Thursday with addendums to the 2016-2018 Memorandums of Agreement with the three city employee unions which would provide a four percent pay increase in 2018 for members:
FOP (Fraternal Order of Police) Lodge 48 Inc.–44 employees; Police officers and Emergency Dispatch officers
SEIU (Service Employees International Union) Local 513, AFL-CIO 2119–53 employees from Parks, Public Works and Water Resources
IAFF (International Association of Firefighters) Local 2119–18 employees; Firefighters
City Manager Toby Dougherty explains who each union represents and their relationship with the city.
“Several decades ago the city of Hays chose to go under the series of statues called the Kansas Public Employee/Employer Relations Act (PEERA) which governs the relationship between the city and the unions,” Dougherty said. “That act outlines what can and cannot be in employee contracts, the meet and confer process, and processes to deal with any disputes or discrepancies that arise from interpreting the contract.”
The city has a three year contract with each of the three employee unions and is in year two of the 2016-2018 contract.
Salaried personnel are not union members. Some clerical personnel and some personnel who deal with confidential information do not belong to the unions.
“It’s a pretty narrow scope of who’s eligible for unions,” Dougherty explained.
The city of Hays currently has 181 full-time employees. Of those, 115 are union members.
During negotiations, the city is represented by Human Resources Director Erin Giebler, lead negotiator Todd Powell of the city attorney’s office and Assistant City Manager Jacob Wood. Individual department heads are also part of the city’s meet and confer team.
“In any given year in the contracts, the wage and benefits section can be opened and all three unions exercised that opening this year. We participated in meet and confer sessions with each union and we came to an agreement essentially to amend that section of the contract,” said Dougherty. “The amendment will contractually provide a four percent wage increase to covered employees.”
City commissioners will consider the union amendment during their July 27 meeting.
The 2018 draft budget includes a four percent pay hike for all city employees.