LANDSLIDE VICTORY!

The city can drag it out as long as it wants to....and they will. Last time we went 1 1/2 years before getting a new contract. Here's the senario: they keep giving crappy offers, or none at all, and refuse to agree to anything we ask for. So, the longer they go without us getting a raise, they save money. When they eventually offer a contract, we lose in some way or another, ie. no back pay, or, like last time, we give up something valuablelike our health insurance. The city government is going to come out on top- you can bet on that. The cost of living increases 3% annually. We have never gotten a 3% raise. We will get a multi-year contract, say 3 years. The first year will be 0%, second and third might be 2%. So, by the end of the third year, the cost of living has increased @ 11-12% (3%, then 3% of that, then +3% of that sum...) and we have ended up with a 4% raise for the contract's life.

Unfortunately, Jerry hates the police department for a variety of reasons. As a department, our officers will never receive what we deserve in pay and benefits unless we get the message out to the public. -Which is something our FOP up til now has not done. The president ran the show, played nice, and was promised a nice cush state payroll job at retirement. So hopefully things will change.

Some of the comments are close, but in actuality Metro Government gave all non union employees a 3.5 % raise this year. That is the very minimum we should settle for. Now that we have new President John McGuire who wan't on the negotiationg committee because keeling kicked him off the day before they started, we should make sure that John knows how we feel. E-mail him with your comments.

We have always in every contract received money retro active to the date the contract expired and won't settle for anything less. Don't believe that other crap. Hopefully when John is brought up to speed he will keep our members informed on what we are seeking and won't be left in the dark like Keeling has done.

I understand they can't talk about offers and counter offers, but they can talk about generalities. Let's have a meeting in January to discuss the contract and options we have like contacting council people etc.. to get this thing moving.

If it takes two years for a new contract to be reached, the city will most likely offer no raise for the first two years of our new 3 years contract then a raise for the 3rd year. This allows the city to avoid paying us back pay on the raises we should have gotten for years 1 and 2 and allows them to keep gaining interest on the money in the bank that should have been our raise. This is a common tactic by the current mayor and one reason why we have wanted a new contract attorney for our lodge. The city must still comply with the current or expired contract in place until a new contract is reached. As for how long can the city drag this out? The answer is pretty much as long as they want until such time as it becomes a lost cause and if I'm not mistaken it is then taken to binding arbitration.