Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Collective Bargaining Overview topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
El Paso City and Local 51 make gains on pay and policy language; dispute remains over revenue-protection clause
Summary
Negotiators agreed on several contract language updates — including a 5% incentive for critical care paramedics and clarified uniform and leave rules — but stalled over a clause the city says would protect revenue if state law limits property-tax authority. Local 51 offered a 0% counter to a proposed 10% insurance-rate increase. Next meeting set for next Thursday.
El Paso City negotiators and representatives of Local 51 met July 14 to continue talks on a successor collective-bargaining agreement, resolving several language items while leaving two key issues under negotiation.
At the session the city presented a package of clarifying edits the parties tentatively accepted, including a provision reported by the city that would grant critical care paramedics a 5% incentive pay. The chair read a proposed incentive rule for field-training-officer assignments — "2 FTO coordinators per shift will qualify for this incentive when assigned duties related to the FTO program" — and the union asked only for clarification on the intended per-shift count.
The parties also agreed on several administrative and personnel provisions: new uniform-allowance language will be reissued with explicit parameters for uniform items and boots; employees may accumulate up to 75% of vacation and holiday time combined; and the agreement will clarify that employees on approved protected leave (FMLA or otherwise) are not required to request leave under the new sentence proposed for Article 17. The city accepted language stating firefighters will not be obligated to use personal devices for city business.
On committee structure and health-and-safety standards, the city accepted restructuring language and asked that committees recommend best practices referencing NFPA 1582 for firefighter health and annual physicals; the city declined to accept union language giving the committees an "advice and consent" role in selecting medical professionals or oversight steering of the peer-support program. A staff member proposed that each committee submit annual reports and that minutes be kept and forwarded to city management, the fire chief and the association.
The two most substantive unresolved issues were a revenue-protection clause and insurance-premium changes. City representative Robert Cortinez said the proposed voter-approval/revenue clause was intended to allow the city to adjust for future state actions that might "limit or restrict city's ability to generate property tax revenue," but Local 51 said the clause, "as currently written, it's a no," while remaining open to further discussion. On insurance, the city tied a change to a 10% rate increase; the union offered a counter-proposal of a 0% increase and asked for more detail on how employee contributions and offsets would be handled. The city confirmed it will permit payroll deductions for supplemental insurance premiums for up to six providers that comply with city vendor policies and will not charge an administrative fee for those deductions.
No formal votes were taken. The parties scheduled a follow-up meeting for the following Thursday afternoon; staff said they would send an invite.
