March 30, 2009 — Union leaders at Monday's hearing of the Labor and Agriculture Committee in Frederiksted spoke against a bill to create a collective-bargaining council to negotiate wages for all unionized government employees and require annual cost-of-living pay adjustments.
Sen. Terrence "Positive" Nelson, the bill's sponsor, said using a collective-bargaining council, with representatives from all the unions for salary negotiations, would help to eliminate disparities in pay between government employees doing essentially the same job, but whose pay is governed by different union contracts. The bill makes the council the bargaining unit "for the express purpose of unified negotiation of performance-based merit pay increases for unionized employees." The bill also requires annual cost-of-living pay increases.
Speaking on behalf of the St. Croix Police Benevolent Association, Local 1901, Arthur Joseph said his union favors annual cost-of-living raises, but opposed the creation of a new labor council.
"To propose the consolidation of unions at this time will only open the door for unions to become more confused as to the direction they should be focusing on," he said.
Implementing the agreement and changing dozens of legally binding labor contracts poses a serious obstacle, too, said Frederick Joseph of the United Steelworkers.
"Previously negotiated benefits and wages are different and would have to be adjusted," he said.
Tyrone Molyneux, president of the St. Croix Federation of Teachers, argued unions should cooperate with one another in negotiations, not join a new council created by the government.
"Coalition bargaining generally resolves the problem of pay disparity," he said. "Not a bargaining council, which, if created, will not simplify or streamline the bargaining process, but instead raises many more issues."
Although not represented at Monday's hearing, Kenneth Hermon, director of the Division of Personnel, addressed the issue at a March 25 hearing on the same bill. Negotiating merit pay for individual employees with the council every year is too massive commitment of manpower and resources to be practical, he said. Hermon favors annual cost-of-living raises in principle.
"However, to ensure that we do not continue the bad practice of negotiating salaries, knowing full well that we do not have the ability to pay," he said.
The V.I. government owes half a billion dollars or more in retroactive pay to government employees for that very reason, he said.
"I am of the opinion that the ultimate decision to award salary increases should be tied to the government's ability to pay," Hermon said.
This bill has been before the Legislature several times before, starting in 2006. (See "Collective Bargaining Bill Heads Back to the Drawing Board.")
By unanimous consent, the committee voted to hold the bill for revisions. Nelson and several other senators made plans to meet with union leaders to get more of their input for revisions to the bill.
Present were Nelson and Sens. Nereida "Nellie" Rivera-O'Reilly, Sammuel Sanes, Craig Barshinger and Usie Richards.
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