MIDDLETOWN — City Council will confront a volatile issue Tuesday when it discusses a proposed resolution urging the Ohio General Assembly to re-examine collective bargaining laws for municipalities, which at least one council member says limit local governments’ ability to control personnel costs.

Councilman Josh Laubach, who brought the idea to City Council and authored the resolution, told members at their last meeting that getting a handle on union contract restrictions is vital for Middletown to stay fiscally sound.

He cited the more than $2.5 million increase expected in police and fire department personnel costs in 2011 as one of the reasons the city needs to find a new way to negotiate contracts with its eight unions.

“If we are running a business, we are looking (at these increased expenses) and saying this is off the table,” he said. “I think for these reasons it’s important that this body ... petition the state legislature for help.”

The bulk of Middletown’s budget — $21.7 million — is for police and fire services, which are receiving a $3.8 million increase despite no new positions.

Laubach brought up concerns in November that the city was dipping into reserve funds to make up for a $762,109 gap in its 2010 budget.

City Manager Judy Gilleland said a study involving the eight employee unions indicated that if each had foregone pay increases in 2009, the city could have saved $600,000.

“As unpopular as it may be to talk about or — in my case — politically unpopular, I believe we are reaching a point where we have no choice but to talk about what collective bargaining means and how it affects our bottom line,” Laubach said.

Councilman A.J. Smith has already publicly protested the proposal by posting a link to his Facebook page last week urging residents to e-mail Mayor Larry Mulligan to tell him “not to support this absurd resolution!”

“(Arbitration) provides an outlet that allows labor and management to have disagreements and have those disagreements tactfully and orderly arbitrated,” Smith said. “I’m afraid Josh’s mentality is employees don’t deserve rights. Josh will tell you employees work at the pleasure of the employer and that is completely wrong.”

“If we get rid of collective bargaining we are asking for a much less qualified workforce,” Smith said. “Ask those council folks (who) are willing to support that resolution, are they willing to have those employees strike?”

Mulligan said he doesn’t think the legislation is meant to be negative toward unions, but to give the city “more flexibility and not leave the decision to a single arbitrator.”

He added that the legislation would not have an immediate impact on city unions: the resolution merely urges state legislators to take action on current laws.

John Hoover, president of the Middletown Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 36, said he plans to attend council’s meeting Tuesday.

“Obviously we do not support this issue,” he said. “(Arbitration) helps us. Any city is going to come to who they are bargaining with and say we don’t have any money. I think without it we are at their disposal as far as whether we get pay increases, insurance benefits or any type of benefits at all.”

Jon Harvey, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 336, said he was “totally appalled by council’s actions.”

“I think they are using their council seats to push their personal agendas,” he said. “And I don’t think collective bargaining has negatively impacted the city at all.”

The last time a union contract went through fact-finding or conciliation arbitration was in 2007 with the Fraternal Order of Police, according to city records. The arbitration resulted in the police union receiving a 3 percent increase for each year of the three-year contract.

Once contracts go through conciliation, the decision made by the arbitrator is binding. At that stage, there is no room for negotiations — either the arbitrator will side with the employer’s request or the union’s, said Sara Mills, Middletown’s assistant law director.

There are eight unions comprised of Middletown employees, according to the city law department. Of those, firefighters, police officers, supervisors, dispatchers and corrections officers are in unions that can go to binding arbitration. The remaining unions — which include Public Works, transit, police civilian and water treatment employees — are “strike units” meaning binding arbitration is not an option if an agreement is not reached and the parties could choose to accept terms or strike.

Since 1997, Middletown has gone through the arbitration process with employee contracts four times.

The last contract to go through the arbitration process was a three-year contract with the Fraternal Order of Police in 2007. In conciliation, the arbitrator awarded the union 3 percent pay increases for each year of the contract, according to state records.

City Council will meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in city council chambers, One Donham Plaza.

Josh is showing a lot of guts by bringing this to the forefront,a valiant effort. But I'm afraid his efforts will be wasted because the city is not going to fight the union and the union is not going to just fade into the background,although I wish they would. As I've said a thousand times and now for a thousand and one,police & fire have no business being unionized. Most unions are nothing more than organized crime syndicates,they will go to any length to obtain their objective including literally holding a city hostage.

I think this would be a great time to show up at meeting and show your support to Josh and show the rest of council that this is something that needs to be done or at least looked into. Does anyone plan on attending?

VietVet wrote: Irisner- I have a question for you. I'm not trying to be argumentative. Just trying to learn something from a union person as I have never worked in a union environment before. Question: (please don't answer if this gets too personal- I understand) You obviously have health, dental, probably vision and some type of retirement package, do you not? If so, what is your contribution to these programs out of your wages in percentage? If your answer is that I don't contribute anything, it is all paid for by my employer, you are already light years ahead of most of us. We are asked to contribute more as time goes by to our dental, health, vision premiums and some employers have cut way back on the amount of money they are plowing into ones retirement. That means, if we are going to have a decent 401K at the end of our working days, we will need to have more and more deducted from our pay to make up for what the employer use to put in...if we can afford to do so. Most can't as the wages aren't that terrific to dedicate a large portion to one's retirement. Question: Have you ever had a year when you got no raise? How about a .5% raise? 1% anytime? I have on several occasions during my 40+ years of working. Just the way it is in a non-union environment and there's no one to go to to "air a grievance" or bargain. You take it and go on because there is no one to listen to your dissatisfaction. OR, do the union folks usually....always get a 3 percenter every year like clockwork that is based on contract negotiations BEFORE the work is actually done rather than on contributions or merit for the year based on work that has BEEN DONE? Thanks, in advance, for your input if you choose to participate.

Mr Nagy, you could not be more wrong. You have always seemed to be reasonable and I will assume your comments here are for being uninformed. MOST on this site are uniformed on Labor matters. Wasteful and Pacman are so out of the info loop, they might as well be 1st Graders trying to do Astro Physics.

As to the question of what I contributed from my pay. Nothing because it was a non-contributory Plan. That is something laid out by Law. It means that the Employer pays on the behalf of the Employee. Now, if you all will put your thinking caps on and forget the angry emotion you usually use to decide an issue, you will remember in Economics, the TOTAL Labor cost is what matters. If an Employer is paying x number of dollars on an Employee's behalf, guess what? The employee has LESS chance of greater raises because of that existing cost.

I tried to educate some before about total labor cost but they only want to hear what they want to hear.

Who cares if the employer pays or the employee makes MORE in pay and pays the bens themselves. What difference does it make? NONE!

As to the AK reference, you probably STILL think it was strike. Many do and are stupid for doing so. Do you know ANYTHING about the issue. Obviously not, or you would not have made the reference.

The jist of this issue is the fact that labor laws have systematically been altered in the past 25 years to be very unfair to the Worker. Companies now get better Deals with their Unions now because they can be UNFAIR. This is about the City not liking the fact the fact that disputes are decided by an Abitor and they do not have the same option of unfairness to use against the Union the way the Private Sector does.

Also, have I never had a raise? Hell yes, many Contracts. We gave BACK on one Contract and Waived raises on two others. One of the raises waived Contracts was in trade for Pension Contributions.

DUH! So I have never contributed? I have contributed a lot!