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North Texas Association of Public Employees

Steel Workers Local 9479

Printable PDF Format of entire September 2003 Newsletter

The Good News Fleet Maintenance is NOT going to be privatized. Due to the efforts of many EBS employees, certain City Council members, various city vendors, and our own Steelworkers Association, the privatization of Fleet Maintenance will not occur this year.  Unfortunately this does not mean that all the EBS employees are in the clear, as there will still be some layoffs as EBS tries to trim down its workforce yet again.  Currently EBS is in discussion with city management over the size and scope of its budget for this year. The City wants it to establish a firm price according to the bid it made during the privatization process. The EBS department is maintaining that if the City wants to hold them to the bid, then they should get the contract for five years like the vendor would have. The problem with the recent bid for all concerned is that except for preventive maintenance, there are no hard numbers. The bid was structured in such a way, that only standard maintenance of relatively new vehicles were bid. The rest; accidents, major break downs, and work on older vehicles that should have been retired, is all considered non-target expenses. Non-target expenses do not have a fixed total that can be spent. Which of course would make it very open to abuse from a vendor who answered to his bottom line, rather than the city manager. However this is worked out, one change is almost certain to be implemented and that is EBS will switch from daylight to mainly night operation. This is going to be a hardship on many employees, but it was part of the bid package that EBS presented in an effort to avoid privaization. EBS lost a lot of employees during this unsettled time, and is slated to lose more to layoff in an effort to beat the privatization bids of others. We need relief from these constant outsourcing. Please pass around and return Petition 1 which addresses this moratorium on Privatization.

The Bad News The health insurance deductibles are by far the issue that is currently the highest priority with the city employees.   According to the numbers reported in the current Benefacts, "The costs of health benefits are projected to increase 12 to 15 percent in 2004."  Why then, are we being asked to pay such astronomical premium increases to maintain the coverage we have now?  A single employee will see an increase from $23 to $111 - a 383% increase!  Coverage for an employee and spouse will increase from $216 to $392 - 81%.  An employee and child(ren) will pay an additional 217%.  An employee and family will see an 89% increase.  Are we really being asked to accept anywhere from an 81 to a 383 percent increase in our rates just to cover a projected 12 to 15 percent increase in costs?!?    At this point it should be pointed out that the single employee is paying $23 this year due to a last minute decision last year that this income could be used to avoid cutting funds to an arts program.    Mr. Benavides and Mayor Miller talking about how the cost of our health care is expected to raise 12 to 15 percent and how they just could not find anyway around the increase of the $1000 deductible, unless we were willing to pay the vastly increased premiums quoted above. What is seldom mentioned is that the City Contribution to the employee Health care is being reduced by tens of millions of dollars to balance other areas of the budget. You can verify this number by looking under the City Budget, Other Fund, page E-5, posted on the DallasCityHHHall.com Internet site.   This is scheduled to be a permanent benefit change. With no automatic roll back provisions for when the budget numbers improve.  Please pass around and return Petition 2 which addresses this issue of permanent change

 

Council Contact Information   We need to get with our friends and families and contact the Mayor and Council. Tell them about your concerns over the health care increases. They are removing money from the system AND increasing the deductible. How unfair is that. To take the money to balance other areas of the Budget and then blame the retirees for the increases!!!

Mayor Laura Miller Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5EN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4054 Fax: (214) 670-0646 lamille@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us     Dr. Elba Garcia - District 1 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FS Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4052 Fax: (214) 670-1815 egarcia@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us     John Loza - District 2 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5EN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4048 Fax: (214) 670-1816 jloza@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Ed Oakley - District 3 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FS Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-0776 Fax: (214) 670-1833 edoakle@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Maxine Thornton Reese - District 4 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-0781 Fax: (214) 670-5117 mtreese@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us   Donald Hill - District 5 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5EN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-0777 Fax: (214) 670-3409 dwhill@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Steve Salazar  - District 6 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FS Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4199 Fax: (214) 670-1833 ssalazar@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Leo Chaney - District 7 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4689 Fax: (214) 670-1819 lchaney@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us

James Fantroy - District 8 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670- 4066 FAX: (214) 670- 1834 jfantro@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us     Gary Griffth - District 9 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4069 Fax: (214) 670-5117 ggriffth@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Bill Blaydes - District 10 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FS Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4068 Fax: (214) 670-1843 bblaydes@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Lois Finkelman - District 11 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FS Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-7817 Fax: (214) 670-0765 lfinkel@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Sandy Greyson - District 12 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-4067 Fax: 214-670-5650 sgreyson@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Mitchell Rasansky - District 13 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FN Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-3816 Fax: (214) 670-1831 mrasans@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us    Veletta_Forsythe - District 14 Dallas City Hall 1500 Marilla Street , Room 5FS Dallas , TX 75201-6390 Main Phone: (214) 670-5415 Fax: (214) 670-8147 vlill@mail.ci.dallas.tx.us  **************************** Steel Workers Dues are less that $5.00 a week; most of us spend more than that at the candy machine. Why not invest it in our future.

 

Important - Remember to Vote on Sept 13th Propositions being proposed of interest to City Employees
The Dallas Central Labor Council encourages all of us to vote YES on PROP 15 which is the most important proposition for municipal employees.    Proposition 15 would guarantee benefits earned in local public retirement systems could not be changed after they had been earned. Even if it means that at sometime the city might want to cut these programs to balance other areas of the budget.   This is not as far fetched as it seems. It has happened several times in Texas and even once in Dallas .  Remember as municipal employees we are not covered under the same pension guarantee laws that the private sector is. Yet another reason why constantly comparing us the private sector is wrong and unfair. Anyhow in a 1937 Texas Supreme Court ruling, City of Dallas, et al. v. Trammell, 101 S.W. 2d 1009,  reversed the rulings of lower courts that had found in favor of a retired police officer who had more than 20 years of service with the City of Dallas and whose pension was reduced almost by half. The Supreme Court ruled that a pensioner’s right is subordinate to the right of the Legislature to diminish accrued benefits or even to abolish a pension system. -- In other words, even if you worked your whole life for it, you currently have no protection if the city decides to cut or eliminate your pension.	The Dallas Central Labor Council encourages all of us to vote NO on PROP 12 which would allow the legislature to determine limitations on non-economic damages concerning civil lawsuits against doctors and health care providers, and other actions. This is being fronted as a law to protect doctors from frivolous lawsuits so that their malpractice insurance premiums will go down.  But actually it has two parts one being medical and the other being ‘other actions’ as they are defined by the legislature.  ‘Other’ could cover almost anything.   This proposition is a bad idea for several reasons. It does not provide the accompanying proposition for the necessary ‘Insurance Reform’ which would force the insurance companies to reduce the malpractice premiums if the malpractice claims are reduced.  Insurance companies rarely voluntarily reduce premiums. Other states which have passed lawsuit caps, later had to pass ‘Insurance Reform’ before premiums were actually reduced.   Also, this law leaves the door wide open for the legislature to pass frivolous lawsuit caps on numerous other areas, with no independent review boards in place to protect individual consumers from big business claiming that any lawsuit against them is frivolous regardless of the merit.
Need more information on these propositions? Please see http://www.tlc.state.tx.us/research/analyses072403/sept13amd.htm

 

September 3rd Council Meeting tid-bits.

The council was a bit surprised that there were only three more weeks to consider the budget. Recent events have kind of side tracked the budget discussion. One of the options that the Human Resource is considering is give each employee $500.00 to go towards the deductible. (No mention was made of defraying the costs for the retirees)  Ms. Miller kept reminding the council that there was no money for this.   No one addressed the fact that millions of dollars were stripped from the benefits budget to be used to balance other areas of the budget.     Mr. Rasansky disliked the $500.00 idea, thinking it was wrong to give this money to all employees. He thought that the money should only be given to people who meet their deductible last year. No word on any consideration being  given to people who met the deductible this year, or would meet it during 2004.      Mr Rasansky had explained to him again that the deductible is not $1000.00 is not per family it is per person.  A family has the potential of $1000.00 per person with much more if the procedures or doctors needed were not ‘in plan’.    Mr. Blaydes and Ms. Greyson were concerned about how the civilian employees were coping with no raises over the last three years, and now this health  thing.  (And let us not forget the reduction in our overall total salary from the SIP reductions) Also much time was spent behind closed doors giving employee reviews to senior staff, which is unusually since they normally are done after the budget year begins.

Time is ticking away people. Please contact your friends and family now. Ask them to call, email and write council immediately. Also please take the three different attached petitions  to work and get signatures from your co-workers. The return date for the petitions is September 15th.  New Hires Targeted Again!!!!! Mr., Benavides and Mayor Miller seemed very proud to announce that employees hire on or after October 1, 2003 , will be allowed to accumulate sick time but would not be eligible for the sick time payout after 20 years of service or at retirement, which ever comes first.  Both were asked but did not answer the question “Are you expecting the City to continue the spiral down for more than the next five years?”   The earliest you could see a benefit from this action would be 5 years once an employee becomes vested.  The HAYS group report indicates that most of the suburban governments (there are a couple of exceptions) are as or more generous than the City of Dallas on the accruing and paying for unused sick time.  This is a practice that many local governments established years ago to offset profit sharing plans and/or stock option plans that commercial business use to entice the best and brightest employees.  It is one of the reason ‘great’ employees will accept less in the way of wages, and the City will lose an important recruitment tool if this is allow to take effect.  I do appreciate that this is one benefit that is not being taken from us, yet.  Please pass around and return Petition 3 which addresses the issue of the city creating ‘Second Class Employees’

 

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