Unalaska, AK – Unalaska's public safety employees union still has not fully agreed upon a contract with the City and is planning to take the City to court.

After more than two years of negotiations and mediation, the two parties met with an independent, mutually agreed-upon arbitrator in October for what was referred to as "binding arbitration." The arbitrator was to come to decisions over the largest contract disputes, which mostly concerned wage increases and administrative issues.

The city council accepted most the arbitrator's findings at last week's meetings, except those pertaining to wage increases. The arbitrator ruled that qualifying employees should receive three percent merit increases for each year from 2006 to 2008. In 2008, they should also get a five percent cost of living increase. The council rejected the final five percent increase saying it would be unfair to other city employee unions. The city and the public safety union disagree about the legality of this decision.

City Manager Chris Hladick said it is completely legal. "Under the Alaska Statutes, the appropriators have the final say concerning wages and monetary issues."

Hladick said that the city is legally required to comply with the arbitrator's decisions on administrative and other matters. Most of those decisions agreed with the city's positions. However, Hladick said the city is not required to comply with the financial rulings because under state law, municipalities have complete control over their finances.

Public Safety Employee Association Executive Director John Cyr disagrees with the city's position.

"They don't get to decide the individual terms of the arbitrator's findings. To do so basically means that class one employees, those employees who do not have the right to strike, have no finality in bargaining," he says.

Class one employees, like police and fire fighters, are not allowed to strike because of the necessity of their jobs. At this stage, all the public safety employees can do is take the matter to court. In previous cases, courts in Alaska have upheld the financial decisions of legislative bodies, like the city council, but that was only in cases where the legislative bodies represented groups that could not afford to pay for the wage increases. During the arbitration process the city said they do have enough money to pay.

Local union head Sergeant Jennifer Shockley says the union decided at Wednesday night's meeting that they will very likely take the case to court and will try to file the paperwork by the end of the month.

"The process of binding arbitration isn't meant to allow one party or the other to pick and choose what parts they want to keep," she said.

The city council voted against the arbitrator's wage decisions 4 to 2. Council members Dennis Robinson and Skip Southworth voted to view the arbitrator's decision as binding.

Council member Roger Rowland voted against the decision and said giving the five percent increase to the public safety union would be unfair to others. "I did not want to differentiate between different employees at the city level. It may be that the matrix needs a bump but this is not the time to do it when the 302 employees and the class three employees did not get it." Rowland also said that the city has increased their compensation to the public safety workers by continuing to pay for full health insurance, as they do for other employees, despite rising health care costs.

Sgt. Shockley disagreed with Rowland's logic. "I can certainly understand the city council wanting to have some similarities between our contract and other city employee union contracts. But the reality is that the different city employees have different work loads, different work responsibilities, different work schedules. And to expect that every represented employee in the city is going to receive the exactly the same type of contract and exactly the same type of benefits and rights within those contracts is, I think, unrealistic and a bogus argument."

The city staff is already acting on the city council's decision and is preparing checks for employee wage increases that are retroactive to 2006.