Originally posted Sept 20, 2013

Last night the Peoria City Council supported the Mayor’s and City Manager’s Petty Politics over the needs of the City Employees to rise out of poverty wages.

The City Council voted in support of Managements plan to give to the haves at the expense of the needy.

AFSCME has consistently stated that all employees in the bargaining unit must receive an equal hourly rate increase of $1.00 an hour. Percentage raises are unfair to the working employees of Peoria. It rewards the well off at the expense of those who work for wages below the poverty level.

BACKGROUND

August 11, 2013, AFSCME declared an Impasse. We advised management that a dispute still existed with the City on wages in our negotiations on the FY2014-FY2015 MOU between AFSCME Local 3282 and the City of Peoria. We requested that the City of Peoria move forward with the impasse process.

The negotiations have been hostile from the beginning. We have expressed our lack of confidence in the Management Team. We have been deceived in the negotiations.

City of Peoria management has stated that they received directions from the City Council. We requested documentation to prove, if the City Council has taken positions by majority vote, that they please provide us with the appropriate documents that show these directions. This did not happen. We believe that the laws governing Open Meetings and Executive Sessions have been violated.

Since the City Council had the final authority to remedy this inequality, we appealed to the City Council to correct this injustice and treat all City of Peoria employees fairly. It is unfair to enrich some and economically suppress others. We asked Peoria to be just too all city employees, not just the favored few. We looked to the City Council to put aside favoritism and support equality.

Yesterday the Peoria City Council turned its back on the working poor city employees and voted for political favoritism and insensitive politics as usual.

Roman Ulman
Executive Director
AFSCME Arizona PEOPLE Conference
480-993-8799