Staff Writer
With all parts of local government being asked to take a 3 percent salary cut, the Jacksonville Port Authority Board of Directors unanimously voted Monday against a union request for a one-time bonus of $2,000 for each of its 63 members.
While the Port Authority and the Federation of Public Employees, a division of the National Federation of Public and Private Employees, AFL-CIO, have achieved some consensus during the collective bargaining process, three issues have held up the signing of a three-year labor contract between the two.
The two groups met before a special magistrate from the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission May 20, and Magistrate Frank Squillace declared the case closed June 12. He recommended that the union’s request for the $2,000 bonus was not unreasonable and should be awarded; that paid time off remain in the formula for calculating overtime; and the “normal workweek” language in the contract remain unchanged.
The Port Authority proposed language “defining the employee’s normal work schedule as his/her last work week without holiday or paid time off; but allowing the JPA to change the employees’ normal work schedule if it so notified the employee in advance of the workweek with the changed schedule.”
Six of the seven members of the board were present for the impasse hearing and vote including, Chair David Kulik, Vice Chair Buck Fowler, Treasurer Herschel Vinyard, Secretary Reginald Gaffney and members Jim Citrano and Joe York. Member Stephen Busey was absent.
“I’m uncomfortable giving the union workers a bonus and not doing anything for the nonunion workers,” said Gaffney. “There needs to be equality in the way we compensate our employees.”
“I have difficulty approving the $2,000 bonus when management has not received an increase and city employees are asked to take a pay cut,” said York.
“If it’s a choice between $2,000 and nothing, then I choose nothing,” said Fowler.
The second issue involved employees “taking advantage of” paid time off in the calculation of overtime pay, said Eric Holshouser, special counsel for the Port Authority from Fowler White Boggs.
A common scenario involved an employee being asked to come in two hours early. The employee would work his regular eight hours and then claim paid time off for the two hours he would have normally worked, earning three hours of pay by using two hours of paid time off.
“It was allowable under the expired contract,” said Holshouser. “It’s something we are trying to clear up in the next contract.”
He also relayed to the board that this “embedded practice” costs the Port Authority about $30,000 in salary a year.
“We agreed to allow management control of overtime hours in the last contract, so how can this be a problem if they are responsible for assigning overtime?” said Daniel Reynolds, president of the National Federation of Public and Private Employees.
The board voted to approve management’s recommendation that “hours paid, but not worked, shall not be counted” toward calculation of overtime pay.
The board also agreed with management’s position on advanced notice of a change in the workweek.
“This was a slap in the face,” said Tom Suneson, Marine Engineers Beneficial Association Gulf Coast vice president. “None of the members of that board can see through the eyes of the working man.”
The Port Authority and union will take the recommendations of the board as they negotiate a new contract. The contract will be presented to the union’s membership for a vote.
If the contract is approved, it will be a three-year contract that will have the option to be reviewed for economic impacts each year. If the union votes down the contract, the board can impose the contract it presented for one year and the two sides will begin the process all over again.
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