City’s AFSCME employees get a 2 percent wage increase

Union employees in the largest of the city's eight bargaining units won't get wage hikes larger than the rest of the city's union employees or its non-bargaining employees.

The City Council on Tuesday will approve a wage increase of 2 percent for about 390 city employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 620, a wage decision that required binding arbitration to reach.

Each of the city's seven other unions settled with the city months ago for the same 2-percent wage increase. The city doesn't routinely go to binding arbitration, Conni Huber, the city's human resources director, noted on Monday.

Thomas P. Gallagher, the arbitrator in the matter, sided with the city over the union on the two issues in dispute, wages and health insurance payments.

The union had sought a 2.5-percent increase in wages, noting, in part, that the city's property-tax levy is less than most other comparable cities in Iowa. The union also noted that it also had been asked to pay more for health insurance.

AFSCME Local 620 employees had been paying no more than $30 a month for single health insurance coverage and no more than $60 a month for family coverage, caps that now go to $50 and $100 a month, the arbitrator has decided.

The arbitrator's ruling notes that Cedar Rapids city employees not represented by bargaining units - about a third of a work force of about 1,200 full-time employees - contribute $90.90 a month for single coverage and $216 a month for family coverage.

In siding with the city on wages, Gallagher concluded that a 2-percent increase is slightly more than wage settlements in most Iowa cities and counties. He added that the rate of inflation also had seemed to have stabilized.

The city has estimated that its wage and insurance package (with increases for social security payments, retirement and Medicare factored in) will cost the city $517,581 more in the current fiscal year than the previous one, an increase of 2.58 percent. The union's position would have cost $769,494 or an additional 3.8 percent, the city told the arbitrator.

The city's seven other bargaining units have signed three-year labor deals which will increase wages 2.5 percent in the second year of the contracts and 3 percent in the contracts' third year.