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Secrecy common in union pay talks Cities' negotiations often preclude public by D.S. Woodfill - Mar. 17, 2012 10:39 PM The Republic | azcentral.com Cities that negotiate pay and benefits with their employee unions in secret are becoming the norm instead of the exception, say union representatives and labor-relations experts. Surprise is one of the latest municipalities to drop the curtain on its yearly negotiations by imposing secrecy rules in the city code in June. Glendale, Tempe, Chandler and Maricopa have similar laws forbidding negotiating parties from disclosing labor talks to the media or public. Surprise goes a step further, threatening to have the police and fire unions disband for two years if they violate the rule. City managers face repercussions that would be meted out by the City Council. The move came after tumultuous negotiations between the then-city manager and the Surprise firefighters union that included public finger-pointing from both sides. The purpose of the ordinance "is so that the public and the press do not interfere with the negotiations," Assistant City Attorney Misty Leslie said when she presented a draft to the City Council in May. Leslie went on to say the ordinance would provide the city a reason to deny any public-records requests. Union leaders and city officials support the rules, saying they promote harmonious discussions. Critics say they're meant to keep taxpayers from having a say in how their money is spent. Nick Dranias, director of the Center for Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute, blasted Surprise's ordinance as "an obvious abuse of the public trust." The Goldwater Institute is a conservative watchdog group supporting legislation to ban "meet and confer" negotiations in Arizona. Dranias said state lawmakers should require officials to hold negotiations in public. "The taxpayers have at least as much of a right as a shareholder in a business to know what their servants are doing with their money," he said. "(Negotiations) must be kept open to the public, and they must be kept open to the press. There is simply no other way that they can make sure that their elected officials aren't serving two masters instead of the one that they're supposed to serve, which is the public." Greg Fretz, a labor-relations consultant and secretary-treasurer of the Arizona Public Employer Labor Relations Association, said negotiating in private is part of a relatively new approach to collective bargaining. "I negotiated in the old days, where you used to be adversarial," Fretz said. "The new theory is both sides are going to have to work together. If you posture in the newspaper or on television, it doesn't do any good. You need to be talking and solving these problems face to face." Comments made in public are often misinterpreted and foster ill will between negotiating parties, Fretz added. "I don't like to generalize, but television -- they're looking for a sound bite," he said. "Once you start talking to the television, radio, newspaper ... there's a chance for misunderstanding." Surprise Councilman John Williams said any deals struck between the city and unions would become public when they're discussed during the City Council's annual budget workshops, which are in April. Deals will be approved or rejected as part of the budget, usually in late May or early June. Williams said the city isn't trying to hide anything from the public but instead is trying to take "a lot of the politics out of it, and it keeps it at that staffing level, where I think it should stay." Other cities provide much less time for the public to digest information contained in a city-union agreement. Capt. Pete Gorraiz, United Phoenix Firefighters Association president, said the agreements between Phoenix's public-safety unions and managers aren't made public until a week before the council takes a vote. He acknowledged that's not enough time for a public perusal but residents elect council members to act in their best interests. "The reality is nobody looks at it anyway," he said, except special-interest groups. Phoenix Councilman Michael Johnson, who serves on the city's public-safety committee, said the rules avoid a cycle of accusations and counteraccusations. Like a jury awaiting evidence in a trial before it reaches a decision, the public needs to have city-union agreements before weighing in, he said. Dan Barr, a Valley attorney who specializes in First Amendment cases, said the laws seem intended to cut the public out of the process. "They're saying, 'We don't want you to be talking publicly about this, because Lord forbid that the public weigh in on what's going on,' " Barr said. Barr said the ordinance's privacy provision would not hold up in court under the state's Public Records Law. "Arizona courts have held repeatedly that the promise of confidentiality between a public body and whomever they're dealing with is not enough to overcome disclosure," Barr said. |