The frustration of following the negotiations between the City of North Miami Beach and its employees’ union continues. Further to my blog, Ask Me About ASFCME, the email exchanges between the city’s labor attorney, Luke Savage, and AFSCME negotiator, Manny Anon, started flying again. Mr. Savage managed to get Mr. Anon to agree to a meeting date of June 5, 2012, even though, judging by the context of the emails, Manny didn’t bother showing up. He sent someone by the name of Ed Moore in his stead. That afternoon, Mr. Savage sent the first of a chain of emails to Mr. Moore, with copies to NMB union president, Janice Coakley, Manny Anon, City Manager and Assistants Lyndon Bonner, Roslyn Weisblum and Mac Serda, as follows:
Janice and Ed:
Attached is a Word copy of the current CBA between the City and AFSCME.
In addition, we are confirmed for our next session on June 26th at 12:00pm. I am still awaiting confirmation of additional bargaining dates. To summarize, at the end of our meeting today we gave you our availability as follows:
July 9, 10, 11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 31
August 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31
As we discussed this morning, in order to facilitate effective bargaining we would like confirmation from AFSCME and commitment to at least one day per week for July and August (from the above dates). Thanks.
Regards,
Luke Savage, Attorney At Law
The next afternoon, Manny wrote back:
Luke, got your word document, thanks. We are working on dates. I will be present during at the 26th meeting. In the interim, please provide me a word document of your proposals. We have it in PDF and its difficult to track changes/counter on a PDF. Look forward to seeing you on the 26th Thanks
Within 30 minutes, Mr. Savage wrote Manny back, copying everyone else, as follows:
Manny,
I need a response on the dates ASAP, and by Friday at the latest. Open your calendar and speak with your team. We can’t wait until the 26th to hear back from you.
It’s not acceptable for you to ask the City Manager and myself to hold open the two month’s worth of dates we have offered you for that length of time with no response from you. If this is some sort of strategy you are employing it is entirely unacceptable.
Luke C. Savage
Manny shot back:
Luke, its not a strategy and I don’t appreciate your insinuation. AFSCME has always negotiated and will continue to negotiate in good faith. We are at the table. You deal with your team and we will work with ours. We will get back as soon as we can…
However, talking bout strategies and being unacceptable is the fact that after 20 years the city has decided to gut our contract and start new. So lets stop the jabbing, because no one from our side is impressed; maybe your clients are. If you feel we are doing something illegal, then do what you have to do. I feel confident that we are negotiating in good faith, we are at the table, and are attempting to painstakingly go through what amounts to a brand new contract. What would be helpful if we can have your proposals in word and maybe give our negotiating team paid time off to go through your contract and proposals.
When I meet with the team tomorrow, we will give you dates. Thanks
Ten minutes later, Manny got his response:
Just get me dates tomorrow. This has been what I’ve asked for since March. The record is painstakingly clear on that. In fact you have spent more time emailing me this nonsense than you have spent responding to any of my requests for dates.
And also for the record, you haven’t bargained yet (in good faith or otherwise). You did not show up to the table yesterday, and Mr. Moore made it clear that the team wasn’t prepared to bargain without you. On top of that you have had our proposals for a month.
Luke
Manny responded:
Mr. Moore has been corrected on that issue…he is more then qualified to negotiate the contract and he, along with the team, were present. So to clarify we have come to the table and will continue to do so. We are negotiating in good faith. Negotiating is more then just what happens at the table. As you know part of negotiating is all the preparation and going through your proposal/changes. Unfortunate, this has become a painstaking process; especially when the city sends us proposals that don’t properly reflect changes to the current contract, i.e., language in the current CBA is left out. Please understand that a wall to wall change now coupled with such inaccuracies makes it much more difficult to go through these articles. Nonetheless, we will continue to work in good faith and painstakingly go through every language change (or non changes) to make sure the city did not leave things out. We will bring all those inaccuracies to your attention on the 26th.
However, again, I ask for the word document of your proposals. Thanks
A couple hours later, Mr. Savage wrote back to Manny:
Here you go – our proposals attached in Word. If you see some discrepancies in the proposals (as you mentioned you might have, below) point them out to me and let me see what we can do to correct them. In any event they were inadvertent, and I am confident we can address them before we finally sit down to bargain on the 26th. Hopefully this will put an end to some of the back and forth.
And please picks some dates from the numerous ones we’ve provided Manny – from attorney to attorney you know I just can’t hang on to those dates (especially that many dates) for 20 days while we wait for you to get back to me. If you can get me a response by tomorrow that would be greatly appreciated. Right now the biggest impediment to us making progress at the table is that we can’t get you guys to the table. I know you can appreciate that, so I respectfully request that we make it happen.
Thanks, Luke
So, let’s see. The city’s labor attorney gave the union negotiator a list of THIRTY FOUR days in July and August that he was available to meet for contract negotiations. These are in addition to the FIFTEEN days he’d been trying to get Manny to agree to since March 6, 2012 when he sent his first email. Three months later, Mr. Savage was able to nail the union negotiator to agree to one of those dates, June 5, 2012, and Manny didn’t even bother to show up!
His surrogate, Ed Moore, came to the meeting and promptly announced that his “team” wasn’t prepared to negotiate without Manny being present. Great, huh?
Manny then told Mr. Savage that Ed “has been corrected on that issue…he is more than qualified to negotiate the contract…” How convenient!
Manny and Ed merely played Pass the Buck, while Mr. Savage was the Monkey in the Middle. Typical Union Games.
Notice how Manny also deftly avoided – again – confirming any dates to sit down and negotiate. Just another Stalling Tactic on behalf of unions in order to keep Dribbling the Ball to Let the Clock Run Out. He also tried one last ditch offensive by stating that “after 20 years the city has decided to gut our contract and start new.” Yeah, Manny. After 20 years of your union sucking off our tax dollars, we’ve had enough.
Meanwhile, the employees are left Holding the Bag, wondering about the future of their jobs.
When will public employees realize that they are nothing but pawns in the Games Unions Play?
Just like mushrooms, the employees are kept in the dark and fed bullshit.
Unfortunately, thanks to Sunshine Laws, for the likes of Manny, it’s Game Over.
Stephanie Kienzle
“Spreading the Wealth”
Oh the games people play now
Every night and every day now
Never meaning what they say now
Never saying what they mean
Unions are such needless, disruptive entities, imo. Years ago my hubby was working as a brand new union employee. There were two side by side bldg’s under construction in Ft. Lauderdale–as I recall, they were both to be over 10 stories high. After the first day, my hubby came home to tell me that some of the ‘guys’ had stayed late in order to destroy staged building materials and sabotage equipment and heavy machinery at the adjacent building site. I was utterly appalled. Hubby said they explained that they did not appreciate any “scabs” working when the union should have gotten the contract. Hubby never went back. That is my personal experience with unions. They are willing to take food out of children’s mouths and cause default of debts, mortgages, what have you in order to vent their greed and hatred. Manny is of the same ilk as those wreckers and umion bosses that ordered the destruction. What some people won’t do for a dollar…. Shameful!
I am not in a union, nor I approve of them, but to say that it is the unions that are the cause of defaults of debts and mortgages is going a bit too far. Last time I checked all of this craziness was caused by the real estate bubble and Wall Street betting against it. Maybe I misunderstood what you meant to say but when you make statements like that you are aiding in the great distraction of what really happened to us, and unions had nothing to do with it.
Cindy was actually referring to a construction (not public) union, which historically have been known to shut down entire projects if they didn’t get what they wanted. If the contractor hired non-union workers to come in, the union thugs would make it impossible for them to work. I believe her comment was referring to those thugs who would literally sabotage jobs for both union and non-union workers, thereby causing financial hardship for the workers.
Public unions and private unions operate under very different rules.
First of all, the huge difference is that government employees, including police and fire personnel, are not allowed to strike. City business and public safety must continue, even during contract negotiations. It is my understanding that even when contracts technically expire, the employees are still operating under those contracts as they are written until a new one is in place.
Secondly, and even more importantly, with the exception of temporary office or maintenance help, there are no “scabs” who could walk in if government employees were to go on strike.
As much as I criticize unions, I will tell you that neither public employees nor their unions are responsible for the economic mess we’re in. Here in North Miami Beach, the problem started years ago by previous administrations, which spent money as fast as it came in and never even considered the possibility that the well would run dry. The good old boys of NMB had a high old time on taxpayer money and we are now all paying the price of that fiscal irresponsibility.
The unions that contracted with the politicians accepted the generous offers (really, who could blame them?), and the employees benefited from that generosity. Of all the people involved back then, the employees were not responsible for any of it. They simply were offered salaries, pensions and other benefits and did their jobs. It’s only in recent years that the employees have been dragged into this mess, and unfortunately, they are the ones suffering the most, as are the residents.
Meanwhile, the former council members who actually caused this mess are pointing to the current new members of the council and blaming them for the budget cuts. That’s the sick part. Even sicker, I heard rumors that at least one of them is thinking of running for office again. I guess he didn’t do enough damage in the 17 years he occupied a seat on the dais. If anyone is to blame, he’s the biggest offender. Talk about sheer, unadulterated CHUTZPAH!
Bravo “Voters Opinion”. Unions are having a hard time these days because of the tactics that you so aptly expose. They can no longer intimidate from behind closed doors. Their blatant bullying tactics compounded by their dumbfounding ignorance makes for cringe worthy reading. It’s like watching a train wreck-gruesome but fascinating.
Don’t be so sure the city is playing straight. Notice the comment fom the union regarding the edited version of proposal having language from old contract missing. That is exactly the type of crafty, sly, measure the manager is capable of. He tries to slide things by people all the time. Always consider the source of the info….
Regardless of what you believe about Bonner, my “source” of this information is a public record of the email exchanges between Luke Savage, Esq. and Manny Anon. I couldn’t care less what’s in the contract at this point, whether or not proposed language is missing, altered or inserted. If Manny & Co. won’t come to the table and hash out the contract line by line, it doesn’t freaking matter what it says. Manny has known since March 6, 2012 that the city was ready, willing and able to meet and get the job done. It is now June 9, 2012 and only one meeting was scheduled, at which Manny didn’t even bother to show up! His surrogate, Ed Moore, told Mr. Savage that he could not negotiate without Manny. The meeting was aborted. Then Manny had the freaking chutzpah to say, after the fact, “Mr. Moore has been corrected on that issue…he is more then qualified to negotiate the contract and he, along with the team, were present. So to clarify we have come to the table and will continue to do so. We are negotiating in good faith.” BULLSHIT! To clarify, Manny, YOU DID NOT COME TO THE TABLE!
This was a carefully planned and executed stall tactic on behalf of the union and we all know it. You can have your opinion about Bonner, which, frankly is none of my business. But you cannot argue what’s written in black and white in documented emails between Mr. Savage and Mr. Anon. And the record clearly shows that Manny has NOT negotiated in faith – good, bad or indifferent. He’s might be a bullshit artist, but he’s not too good at that, either.
After what happened in Wisconsin would someone please let me know just why we are negotiating with these dunderheads in the first place. I must be laboring under the false impression that Florida is a right to work state; doesn’t that apply to public service workers also?
I believe we should pull a Scott Walker and lay a take it or leave it proposal on the table, with the provisio that the city will not deduct union dues from the employee’s paycheck. If the employee still wants to remain unionized then so be it; if not don’t write out the freaking check. That should put a crimp in their posturing operations.
I suppose though that such an approach would bring the FEDs down on our heads; the all seeing NRLB annointed protector of unions. For in their infected eyes we would not be negotiating in good faith; whatever the hell that may mean. I say bring it on, it would give us a chance to show them up for what they really are; a pack of worthless snollygostering bureaucratic imbeciles.
As for the BONNERLIESTOO cretin where the hell is your evedence? Boneheads that make assertions like that must have evidence and lacking it makes the statement a libel. People that do that really PISS me off and I hope Bonner can find out who this jackass is and sue him for every dime he has in libel suit!