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August 29, 2009
Detroit - Another deadline passed Friday in Mayor Dave Bing's pay-cut showdown with unions, prompting him to lay off 205 workers and promise another 1,000 will be out of work next month without a deal.
But Bing also delayed by at least a month a proposal to lay off 113 Department of Transportation drivers and end bus service after 6 p.m. on Saturdays and on Sundays. He also extended his deadline to unions to Sept. 26 to accept cuts to avoid mass layoffs, for which notices already have been mailed.
Bing, who made no public appearances Friday, released a statement expressing disappointment that unions refused to accept a 10 percent pay cut and other benefit reductions. He said the city continues to "stare a fiscal crisis in the face."
But union leaders say Bing blinked in a high-stakes showdown and underestimated the outcry over bus cuts. Hundreds flooded public hearings about the cuts that ended Thursday, and City Council members have signaled their opposition.
"I'd back down too until I got re-elected ," said Henry Gaffney, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 26, whose members' jobs, at least for now, are preserved. "I don't think the mayor expected this sort of backlash."
Friday was Bing's second deadline to come and go since late July. Citing a deficit of at least $300 million and as much as $80 million in decreased revenues, Bing wants the city's 10,000 unionized workers to decrease their pay and bend on several benefits, such as longevity bonuses of as much as $750 a year, paid lunches and vacations and other paid absences that can add up to 42 days per year.
Talks with some of the city's unions were expected to continue Friday and through the weekend. But Bing's staffer couldn't say which ones. Nor could the Mayor's Office say which workers lost their jobs Friday or would lose their jobs Sept. 26, but said every department would be affected except police, fire and emergency medical services.
Adding to the uncertainty, Bing's press secretary, Edward Cardenas, said layoff notices for the next round of 1,000 workers already were mailed "earlier this month," but didn't say when.
The lead negotiator for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the city's largest labor union, said she's not surprised by the delays because Bing "has proven to be dishonest." She said her union absorbed all the layoffs Friday and the notices for them were mailed in July.
"I think he's bit off more than he can chew," said Catherine Phillips, who is next scheduled to negotiate Tuesday. "It was too hot for him and he had to back off."
The reprieve for bus drivers was facilitated by the administration's decision to use $400,000 in federal stimulus money on their salaries and benefits for the next 30 days.
More details on the Friday layoffs, such as job losses by departments, won't be available until Monday, said Karen Dumas, the mayor's communications director. But she said "every department was affected" except public safety, the water department and the Department of Transportation.
"No one is immune," she said.
The decision was praised by Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Talabi."I recognize we will have to do some cuts," Tinsley-Talabi said. "My emphasis is noncore services first.
"You can't respond knee-jerk."
Bing has said he needed the pay cuts, as well as other concessions, to improve the city's current financial condition, and without the changes, the city could start running out of money to pay its bills in October. But this week, he backed off that projection by a few months, saying he found money to stop the city's bleeding. Tuesday, 10 percent pay cuts will go into effect for about 3,000 nonunion workers and mayoral appointees, a move expected to save some $11 million.
But union officials have said the cuts are too deep and at least one leader has mentioned the possibility of a strike, although municipal workers are banned by state law from staging a work stoppage. Other union leaders have downplayed the strike talks.
The delay follows a series of hearings on Bing's proposal on bus cuts, which would also increase wait times on 30 routes and eliminate others. In recent days, Bing officials have backed away from the proposal, with his top aide, Charlie Beckham, telling the council the administration is working around-the-clock to avoid the end of Sunday service.
Gaffney, the bus driver union president, said Beckham told him Thursday that the city has $3.2 million in federal Department of Transportation money that could be used for "operational costs," including salaries and benefits.
"That could last those drivers eight months and give us time to work something out," Gaffney said.
Gaffney believes Bing did not anticipate the community outcry over the proposed reductions in bus service.
"We are talking about someone who never rode a bus in his life," Gaffney said "If he did he would know what it's like to make $10 an hour, and what happens if they would lose their job."
But Dumas said the halt of layoffs of drivers was "only temporary" until a permanent decision could be made.
"We will now take that data and the citizens' concerns as we determine what changes can and should be implemented with minimal impact to ridership," Bing said in a statement.
The reprieve on bus service was welcome relief to Irma Wolfe, a licensed nurse who waited in the rain Friday afternoon for a bus ride home.
The unions are also leery of what Bing will do if he is re-elected to a four-year term in the Nov. 3 general election.
"He knows he's starting to lose support," said Gaffney. "If he gets re-elected he can just go crazy and do whatever he wants."
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