City of Dallas Employees Newsletter April 2003

North Texas Association of Public Employees

Steel Workers Local 9479

Printable PDF Format of entire April 2003 Newsletter

As some of you are aware privatization is again being considered for several city departments. This tired old plan is going to be dusted off and sold to the citizens as a cost saving measure. Been there, done that, watched the pink slips being handed out.

Privatization has been promoted many times as the way to improve efficiency and save money. But as we saw in sanitation, the water department and other areas, it never works like it is suppose to. Can you say pugmill? Convention center?

The city always ends up getting hosed on these deals. Newsflash! The companies who take these contracts are in it for the money. They will do the absolute minimum required to fulfill the contract (or less) and they will only do it as long as it remains profitable.

Many times the bids are ‘low balled’ so they can secure the contract. On some, they save money on maintenance, on others it is a systematic or rolling service skip. Some vendors will take the contract and bail the instant costs go up and they decide there is not enough money in the contract to make it worth their while. Others leave when the facility they have taken over starts failing due to lack of basic maintenance. This leaves the city scratching, scrambling and spending like crazy to get the personnel and equipment necessary to fulfill these city functions… Or worse, having to go back out and renegotiate the contract with the bidders knowing that we have no equipment or personnel and are now at their mercy. This is about the time that the TRUE costs of privatization become evident.

But don’t worry. The people that originally pushed the privatization program have already reaped their political hay and moved on to bigger or more profitable things. Which is good because other wise they would have to explain all the tricky bookkeeping and hidden costs that are now coming to light, or why it is going to take a fortune to get necessary services restored.

The bottom line is that many city services are not an optional thing. We need people purifying water, fixing streets and picking up trash no matter what happens. And unlike private vendors, the city does not have the luxury of walking away from something when it becomes more costly.

One last thing to consider is the multi-functional nature of most departments. Unlike private vendors our departments have numerous duties during emergency situations. One example is the river levee groundkeepers that also have to know what to do to keep the city safe in a flood situation. Try getting your average lawn maintenance company to do that during a high water incident.

City employees need to do a better job of educating the citizens on the many facets and hazards of the jobs we do for them. Of course it would be nice if some of this stuff was taken into consideration once in a while by management and council… but we can work on that now can’t we.

Lots of employees want to know is the sick time grab still possible? The answer to that would be a big yes. For reasons unknown, certain parties still persist in flogging this dead horse of an issue. Why you ask. Who can say for sure. Political gain? Personal satisfaction? No way of being sure about the why of the situation. It is certainly not about the money.

Not about the money? Nope. As many of you know the sick time accumulation was put into place to do several things. Chief among them was to save the city money. Encouraging people to not use their sick time saves money in several ways. Reduced overtime for positions which must be covered by law or necessity and reduced pay out of short term disability are just two of the big reasons.

Of course anyone watching the evening news is not going to know that this issue is not about the money. We have all seen those reports. Of course the reports that the general public has never seen are the ones that show how much accumulation sick time is forfeited every time someone cashes out their sick time at retirement.

According to Human resources, the amount of time forfeited is more than the amount of the payouts. Amazingly enough they never hear about the amount of money the city saves every year in short term disability payments since very few employees need to use it due to their accumulated sick time.

The problem with our sick time rules is a lack of understanding on the part of the citizens and the media of what the program accomplishes and why it was set up. This is exasperated when we have bad labor conditions and the people who have been eligible to retire for several years decide to all go before things get any worse. We lose tons of long term experienced employees and sick time payout amount balloons. Human Resources tells us a similar thing happened in the early 1980’s during all the downsizing that took place then.

The next thing you know we have people going around town screaming about people getting sick pay when they aren’t sick, which wasn’t true and without ever mentioning the money that has been saved over the years or the money saved with forfeited sick time.

Right now, the idea that does not ever seem to die is to ‘grandfather’ the current sick time accumulation for current employees and to create a second class of employees with less benefits. This is not being considered to accommodate or placate the employees with accumulated sick time. It is being considered because of the almost certain deluge of lawsuits that would follow if they tried to take away the earned accumulated sick time.

So this is good right? We get to keep our time. No, in the long run this bad. The problem is that with the change in SIP (new hires do not get it) and changes being considered like this, we are in very real danger of creating a group of second class employees. This is not fair to them, and it certainly is not without an element of risk to us.

Are you really looking forward to working with a group of ‘new hires’ that are disgruntled at the inequality between their benefits and ours? And a few years down the line, when you try to explain to your ‘new hire’ boss why you need six weeks of your accumulated sick leave for a major surgery what kind of reception do you think you will get? Since they have no voice until hired, perhaps we need to stick up for the new hires, we WILL have to work with them.

Are your retirement benefits really protected? Apparently not

Don’t take your retirement benefits for granted.

Most city employees go to work each day assuming that they have a retirement they can bank on. City employees and other Texas public employees are dedicated to serving their communities and we know that an important part of our compensation for our years of public service is a secure pension when we retire. Right?

Texas public employees, retirees, and survivors can have their retirement benefits reduced or eliminated at any time by the Texas Legislature or City government. Benefits can be cut even though we contribute part of our wages and in spite of the fact that the Texas Constitution requires retirement systems to place pension assets in a trust for their employees. Pension benefits for City of Dallas employees were reduced during the Great Depression and that was upheld by the courts in the “City of Dallas verses Trammel” case. It has happened in other areas of Texas as recently as 1969, 1992 and 1996. It can happen in Dallas again.

Currently there is a bill (Joint House Resolution 54 and Joint Senate Resolution 38) being presented to the Pensions and Investments Committee of the House of Representatives to amend the state constitution to guarantee that once earned, public pension benefits cannot be reduced. The bill is receiving unanimous approval and has been sent to the full house for a vote. A major obstacle at this time appears to be in the Senate State Affairs Committee.

input as well as the input of other employees around the state will be necessary to get this bill out of committee and pass this legislation.

Do not delay in contacting your senator and state representative to seek their support, a vote will be taken prior to June 2, 2003 .

In addition, contact the members of the Senate State Affairs Committee, Who are:

To identify your representative and senator go to the internet and look up the website: www.house.state.tx.us , click on the “members” icon and look on the right side of the webpage. You will find a box to enter your home address, which will allow you to identify your representatives. Get involved, please write your senator and state representative in Austin seeking their support. Our Steelworker International representatives have working on our behalf to urge the Senate and Congress to pass this bill, you can help by getting involved now!

Appeal to City Council to immediately schedule charter changes to ensure free speech for all Civilian Employees

Well they have sent us Michael Stanley, Special Assistant to the International President of the United Steelworkers of America, he has been working very hard to interface with us and the council and various other Labor organizations in the area.

He is also working with us to try and get changes to the City Charter made so that civilian employees can have the same free speech rights as the city council and the uniformed employees. We encourage all employees to contact the city council and request that this matter be placed on the next charter ballot. Ask them to do this BEFORE the elections, to insure that we are not penalized at the next one.

On behalf of the North Texas Association of Public Employees- an affiliate of the United Steelworkers of America Local # 9479 (NTAPE-USWA), we are hereby appealing to the Dallas City Council to fully embrace and advocate the appropriate changes to the City Charter which would allow all City / Civilian Employees the right to exercise their first amendment rights of free speech. It must be emphasized that in its present form, the City Charter expressly prohibits equal and fair treatment to all city employees.

The current charter provisions of chapter XVI section 16 pages 66 & 67 outlines certain prohibitions regarding the election of City Council Members. Public endorsement and active support for candidates should apply equally to all city employees who wish to engage in the political process of participatory city government. With every city employee having access to the same free flow of facts, ideas, opinions and beliefs, democracy will surely flourish and enrich our ability to govern without fear of reprisal or intimidation.

By now, each of you should have copies of the relevant charter provisions along with the ballot format of proposition # 11 approved by the voters on August 12, 1989- which amended the charter as follows:

(d) " Notwithstanding any conflict with Subsections (b) and (c) of this section, a sworn employee of the fire department or the police department may engage in political activities to the extent permitted by state law."

Unfortunately, this provision change failed to include all city civilian employees.

Tried and tested citizens have clearly demonstrated their ability to make the best informed decision on any issue, large or small, if they are permitted to live in an environment of unrestricted information by offering the widest range of potential input. To stifle the free dissemination of opinions and information may result in selective secrecy and sometimes-widespread fear.

The ability to fully engage the public during the election process adds richness to our information environment and allows us to make the best informed decisions about city matters of public interest.

The proper venue to make the charter reflect moral clarity rests with the
city council officials. Your willingness to act promptly prohibits censorship from being used as a blunt instrument of unwarranted control.

Every city employee gives their individual time and talent each day to insure the overall delivery of quality service to the public is met. This collective loyalty should not be rewarded by the denial of public activity in the city election process.

The City Council can help sustain equality for all city employees by taking the immediate and necessary steps to change the City Charter. This "act of good faith" will make our society stronger while remembering the rights of others.