No Immediate Strike Threat Seen As City Contracts Expire

  
KYW Newsradio Team Coverage

by Mark Abrams and Al Novack

Four union contracts covering Philadelphia's municipal workers expired at midnight on Tuesday night, but don’t look for the workers to walk off the job just yet.

For the 13,000 or so "non-uniformed" workers represented by District Council 33 (blue collar) and District Council 47 (white collar), there hasn’t even been a strike-authorization vote by either group. Union leaders say they’re still at the bargaining table.

Police and firefighters ("uniformed" workers) -- who by law cannot strike -- will have their contracts decided in arbitration.

The major issue is mayor Michael Nutter’s proposal to make changes in the pension system for new employees.

Leaders for the municipal workers' unions say they oppose a two-tier pension system that gives new workers less (see related story). They’re also not happy with city proposals for a wage freeze and major changes in the health benefits.

The mayor says the pension plan changes would save the city more than $500 million over 30 years. He argues that employee costs must be reined in so the city can deal with its $1.4 billion, five-year shortfall.

Both sides have agreed to keep talking, but the city says it has contingency plans in the event the negotiations break down and the municipal unions decide to walk off the job.
 
The last municipal workers' strike in Philadelphia was in 1986, and it lasted 20 days.

Union Workers Hold Rally (photo above)
 
Meantime, the Pew Charitable Trusts is out with a followup report on the pension situation.

KYW's Steve Tawa reports that Pew research director Larry Eichel paints a bleak picture:

"Philadelphia's pension fund now has under 50 percent of the amount it needs to pay all of the obligations it has incurred to past and current workers."

Eichel says an improving economy will only help so much in shoring up the pension fund:

"It means more money has to go in from the outside.  There are only two places it can come from -- taxpayers and, to some degree, from the workers."

Mayor Nutter's day on Tuesday included a trip to Harrisburg to lobby for a temporary one-cent increase in the city sales tax to shore up the budget, and for permission to change how the city pays into the pension fund.
 
No meetings were scheduled between the Nutter administration and the unions as of Tuesday, but there was an expectation of some talks by the end of next week.