Human Resources Director Jim Davis, who was the lead negotiator for the county, said he has been negotiating labor contracts throughout his career and he has never before experienced a more contentious atmosphere in which to try to strike a deal.
“All my other dealings with management and labor relation were predicated on good relationships and that just didn’t exist at Children Services,” he said. “It was very challenging to work in that kind of contentious environment that was unlike any that I’ve experienced.”
The county agreed to a 2 percent increase to the minimum and maximum salaries on their pay ranges, and in July, the social workers will receive one- to three-percent pay hikes based on their performance. A 2 percent pool of money is available for raises. The salary ranges will get another 2 percent boost in 2016, and workers will be eligible for merit pay.
Union Chief Becky Palmer said with the increases to the pay ranges everyone will be eligible for raises this summer, previous county offers would have left the most experienced people without raises. However, the union members are still not enamoured with performance pay.
“The union took a huge leap of faith to work with the county’s performance plan. We are not worried that our workers can’t perform, we know they can given the tools and the support we need to do our job. Our concern remains with the politics and subjectiveness that impacts how it is implemented,” she said. “Equal steps kept the impact of the subjectivity out of it. We also had no input into the actual evaluation and we have gone from a social work specific evaluation to one that compares us to all other county employees. Again, only time will tell if they can truly implement it in a way that is objective and fair.”
The commissioners have been on a mission to get the entire county to buy into their new pay-for-performance model. This was the first year the non-union employees under their control got merit pay. Last year a new performance evaluation was used and the commissioners approved merit raises totaling $115,816 for 96 non-union employees, under the commissioners’ direct control in January.
Commissioner T.C. Rogers said the board is glad to have this behind them and he hopes things can go back to normal.
“We’re happy it’s over and like I’ve said from the beginning, I truly do appreciate the work that the employees do there,” he said. “We hope that now we get back to total focus on the children and their safety.”
Davis said they will bring in a mediator to help them heal the broken relationship between management and the social workers.
“As part of this, I think both sides Becky and (union attorney) Jessup (Gage), the commissioners and myself are committed to improving the relationship and getting it back onto a course I believe is more normal,” he said. “So we’re going to be doing some labor-management cooperation work… I have high hopes it will let us implement this contract.”
The negotiations went sour last summer when the wage divide was about a $1 million difference between what the workers wanted and the county said it could afford. The lump-sum $500/$550 payment the county offered would have cost $213,000 extra. A SERB fact-finder recommended 1.5/1.75/2 percent pay bump, plus cost of living steps, which had an additional price tag of $1.3 million.
Palmer ordered a strike vote after Davis cancelled two negotiating sessions. The message Davis sent to the union’s attorney tells the tenor of the talks back then.
“It is my opinion that the nature of our last session and the public comments about negotiations that have been made recently have created an environment that is not conducive to successfully reaching an agreement,” Davis wrote. “I intend to reschedule a session mid-August in what I hope is a more positive climate for reaching a settlement. At that time, I will respond to your last counter proposal.”
Over two days in the beginning of August the union workers filed outside their building on Fair Avenue — management wouldn’t let them conduct the vote inside — and voted 90 to 14 to hit the picket line. After week one, the county issued a cease and desist order because they said union workers were telling untruths about what was going on inside the building in their absence.
Children Services Director Bill Morrison at the time denied any hiccups had gone on at the agency after 55 workers walked off the job.
“To the people who are working there, to have their own go out and tell untruths about their ability to protect the children of Butler County is incredibly hurtful,” Morrison said.
But Palmer accused the county and Children Services management of glazing over real problems that were going on in the absence of the striking workers.
“They are not being honest… Do they think that they can do the job of this many people?” she told the Journal News on Aug. 22, the fifth day of the strike. “It’s very serious, and I just feel like they should be scared about this whole situation; there is so much liability here. We are feeling it, I don’t understand why they’re not feeling it.”
The union filed a complaint with SERB prior to the strike saying the county was refusing to bargain in good faith. The county also complained to SERB after the three-week strike ended with no contract, about the untruths they said union workers were spewing. SERB dismissed both complaints.
The union filed another complaint with SERB after management laid off 13 union workers at the family visitation center in October. County officials said the cash strapped agency saved $800,000 by turning the family visitation center over to a contractor. The county and the union settled the case a week ago, the same day the contract was tentatively approved. Both sides say the two issues are mutually exclusive. The county has agreed to pay $120,000 — $9,230 per displaced worker — and to arrange at least eight hours of labor-management training.
The social workers, all dressed in black, went back to work en masse without a contract on Sept. 9. The striking workers had been picketing without paychecks for three weeks but Palmer at the time said that’s not why they returned to work.
“At this time, we have elected to put aside what is best for ourselves, our families and our co-workers to return to our duties as social workers to do the best for the families we serve,” Palmer said during a news conference in front of the agency at 300 Fair Ave. “We simply cannot continue to sit by and watch as the agency obligations go unfulfilled, and those in charge repeatedly fail to make adequate arrangements to correct the problems.”
She said parents sought out their social workers on the picket line and called their cell phones at all hours because they hadn’t gotten responses from the agency during the strike.
Young refuted Palmer’s claims that families weren’t being adequately served.
“We believe we’ve done an extraordinary job during this labor dispute, but that isn’t to say someone couldn’t have a complaint,” Young said in September. “We have had plenty of resources to meet the needs, and I am not aware of a complaint that has proven valid.”
The divide between the two sides eventually was reduced to an estimated $303,000 before the final contract was reached. The county saved $147,205 on striking workers’ salaries during the strike but ended up spending $176,782 on working employees’ overtime, sheriff’s security, legal bills and advertising the job fair the county hosted prior to the walk-out, among other expenses. It took 27 negotiating sessions over 20 months to seal the deal.
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