Mayor Welch Reverses Ban On Citizen 'Time Yielding' at City Council Meetings

 Former Mayor John Bauters' Tight Control on Citizen Free Speech Lifted by Mayor Courtney Welch (a little)

Citizens Now Allowed to Yield Their Time to Other Citizen Speakers

Mayor Courtney Welch
Tuesday's action means more rights for citizens
addressing their government.  Accountability is
increased (slightly).

In a rare opening up of government accountability, Mayor Courtney Welch announced Tuesday she is reversing a former ban on citizen ‘time yielding’ at City Council meetings.  As is the case in most cities, Emeryville citizens will now be allowed to yield their (two minute) speaking time to another citizen, thereby doubling the speaking time of those granted the extra time, up to four minutes.  

While Mayor Welch did not indicate she would permit more than one citizen to yield their time per go as many other cities in the East Bay do, this expansion of citizen free speech in Emeryville is nonetheless unprecedented.  Over the last decade plus and picking up speed under the tenure of former Mayor John Bauters, citizens wishing to engage with their government by offering up public comment at Council meetings faced nothing but increasing constraint.

The time yield concept was tested Tuesday by members of the staff, who’s union; SEIU, was expressing their disfavor over a City Hall planned 6% roll back on their pay when a staff member called out from the gallery, “I yield my time to the speaker” who’s two minutes speaking time had run out.  It was an outburst that would have brought the gavel down during the time of Mayor John Bauters.  Instead of dropping the gavel, Ms Welch calmly acquiesced and then granted it again to another SEIU member later in the meeting.  And, because all citizens must be treated fairly and equally by the government, citizens are now granted the right to yield their time at Emeryville City Council meetings.

In Emeryville, mayors are given the power to grant or forbid the yielding of public comment time and also the number of minutes citizens are allowed to speak.  California law requires a minimum one minute per citizen for each agenda item but most cities grant three minutes.  Commonly, mayors will lower the speaking time if there are large numbers of speakers.

Former Mayor John Bauters
Not a fan of accountability, Mr Bauters moved to constrain
citizen's ability to speak at City Council meetings making it 
less free than any other time in more than 40 years.

The new increase in ability for citizens to speak to their government in Emeryville is rare indeed.  Twenty years ago, speaking time for public comments was five minutes and multiple citizens could yield their time to speakers at the podium for each agenda item.  This was chipped away at over the years.  The speaking time was first lowered to three minutes and then down to two minutes by Mayor Bauters.  The ability for citizens to yield time was also then taken away by Mayor Bauters.  So draconian were the anti-free speech policies at City Hall by the end of Mayor Bauters tenure, Emeryville had the ill fortune of having the harshest constraints on citizen engagement of all neighboring cities.  Mayor Welch’s increase in Emeryville citizen's free speech rights, incremental though it may be, reverses the nearly two decade long slide.  

CAMP Representatives At Bargaining Table Against SEIU

City Hall's Cynical Management Manipulations

Opinion

Politics in Emeryville can sometimes seem as if it were a microcosm, analogous of the nation where unions are being squeezed and even crushed.  Such is the case with the plight of labor at City Hall.

To the detriment of the taxpayers in town, management at City Hall has been very crafty (and persuasive) in their efforts to protect their pay and benefits, while simultaneously striping the lowly SEIU workers of their already low pay and benefits.  The Tattler reported (December 3rd) how, after failing to secure pay enough raises and pension contributions from the city council in the face of the recent budget cutting, management formed their own phony union (known as CAMP) to assure any compensation raises earned by the legitimate unions would also automatically be showered upon the management.  This turns the traditional paradigm of workers bargaining with management on its head.

Effectively, the management has ensured they have hitched a ride with any pay increases fought and won by the lowest paid workers and all the while they are fighting to cut the pay of their union "brothers".  They're saying the SEIU workers need to sacrifice, not CAMP.  It's cynicism to the nth degree and it's being done at the taxpayers expense.

Stephen Cutty, the field representative for the SEIU workers has called the bizarre spectacle of one union fighting to cut the pay and benefits of another union unethical and we agree.  Certainly to have representatives from the phony management union sitting at the bargaining table with the city one day and then switching hats and representing the city the next day is unseemly at best.

We have to ask who needs to have pay raises and who needs to have pay cuts at City Hall. SEIU workers, already the lowest paid workers in the city can't afford another round of pay cuts and still live in Alameda County.  The average SEIU worker makes $4,462.50 per month with pension contributions of $1,338.70 for a total compensation of $69,614.40 per year.  The cost of living in Alameda County is listed at $68,375 per year for a difference of $103 per month for SEIU workers and their families.  Management wants to squeeze these workers for an additional 7%, pushing them below what it takes to live in Alameda County.  Meanwhile, the average management compensation at City Hall is $138,465.00 per year, including pension contributions, leaving an extra $5,840.00 per month for management employees.

The management at City Hall is exposed as Machiavellian manipulators.  The wrong people are being forced to make the concessions and this sort of disingenuous politics doesn't represent the values of the people of Emeryville.  Management is pushing down compensation for the poorest workers while they keep theirs up and it's all being done in our name.  We call on the management to honor labor and go the bargaining table in good faith and remember the people of Emeryville are the true inheritors of labor relations policy and practice at City Hall.  We're watching.

Union Bashing At City Hall

Shades Of Wisconsin

City Hall's Madison Moment

Tuesday night, Emeryville's lowest paid public union members descended on the council chambers, agitated after receiving notice from City Hall that they will have their pay cut, again.  The workers have  partaken in 19 good faith bargaining sessions with the city that have not produced a contract.  Some 42 Service Employees International Union (SEIU) city workers, laboring without a contract since June, let the city council know they're tired of being treated like a doormat Tuesday night.

Many city workers already do not make enough money to live on but the city is asking them to take another pay cut.  The city for its part asserts that Emeryville is facing "long and short term economic uncertainty" and the SEIU workers should bear the shared sacrifice and accept their pay cuts. The union contends that talk of shared sacrifice is unconnected to reality since it is only the SEIU workers that are really being forced to sacrifice.

Pay Day at Emeryville City Hall for SEIU workers.

Stephen Cutty, the field representative for SEIU noted the lack of symmetry in regards to the cost of living adjustments for three of Emeryville's public unions, "From 2006 to 2012 with a one year extension, the firefighters got a 26% adjustment and the police got 18% while SEIU only got 1.7%"  Mr Cutty told the Tattler that SEIU employees are already the lowest paid in the city, "The lowest paid SEIU employees get only $1800 a month while the lowest paid fire fighters and cops get $7,400" he said.  "Average SEIU salary is only about $4000 per month", he added.

Union representatives noted Emeryville's rainy day fund known as the 'Uncertainty Fund' is now more than 250% of what the Government Finance Officers Association's best practices recommends.  Workers contend these are the very uncertain times the fund is meant to ameliorate.  Further, they maintain Emeryville has a record of overestimating expenses and underestimating revenue to the tune of an average of $3.4 million per year.  The workers say if less than 10% of these excess funds were applied, it would be enough to cover all the cuts to the employees wages and mitigate the inevitable fractured services the city will experience with the cuts.

More than one worker Tuesday night noted the parallels between the language of Wisconsin's Governor Scott Walker and the management at City Hall, raising the idea that perhaps it's not the interests and values of Emeryville's residents that's really being addressed by the management, but rather some other ideological agenda that's operative here.  Union representative Stephen Cutty said he thought Emeryville's recalcitrance to decently pay the SEIU workers can be traced to 1968 Memphis and the infamous garbage workers strike lead by Martin Luther King.  "The garbage workers there were also the lowest paid in the city", Mr Cutty said,  "It's sad that we're still fighting the same fight today". 

New Manager's Union At City Hall

Manager's 'CAMP' At City Hall

Emeryville: Where Managers Need A Union Too!

News Analysis
Budget crisis? What budget crisis?

If you thought the City's attack on Emeryville Child Development Center earlier this year was based on anti-union sentiment among the City's managers, the story just got a bit more complicated. 

The City Council is poised to vote Tuesday on a resolution put before them from the managers on the city staff to make a whole new unionized workforce at City Hall.  They're  calling for the creation of a new union, just for managers called the Confidential, Administrative, Managerial and Professional employees (CAMP).  


It seems the City's managers have decided that what's good for the rest of the City's employees is good for them too and they have organized the union that includes everyone except the City Manager Patrick O'Keeffe, City Attorney Michael Biddle, Assistant City Manager Delores Turner, and the Human Resources Director. 


The manger's union will include the Fire Chief, Police Chief, Community Services Director, Child Development Center Manager, Senior Center Manager, and apparently all other previously unrepresented City employees; unrepresented because they are managers, not workers.

What motivated this revolt? There was some belt-tightening required to pass the most recent budget, and City management had to give up their Administrative Leave cash out, which in prior years had been used as a means to reap a nice year-end bonus for those managers eligible. When the City Manager and City Attorney recently modified their contracts with the City, they both retained a right to cash out Administrative Leave. So perhaps the hypocrisy of the City's leadership finally pushed these other managers to stand up for their posh benefits.

The revolt might also be in response to the new budget's call for the management to start contributing something towards the employee-portion of their retirements. Previously the City paid both its share and the employees' share, but the new budget called for employees to start chipping in. This was something the managers first tried to avoid last July with the proposal of a "me-too" clause that would give them the benefit of whatever deal another group, such as the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)-represented employees, might be able to negotiate (see Tattler story "Budget Crisis" July 18). The Council reacted harshly to this proposal and made it clear that their direction to implement employee contributions towards retirement was unequivocal and should have already been implemented. Months later, it remains unclear whether it has, and now, it looks like the process for modifying the pay and benefits of the City's managers will require bargaining with their new union.

Here's a list of the new unionized positions: Job Classifications and/or Titles of Employees Represented by CAMP:

• ACCOUNTING MANAGER 
• ACCOUNTING SUPERVISOR
• ASSISTANT CITY ATTORNEY 
• ASSISTANT FIRE CHIEF 
• ASSISTANT TO THE CITY MANAGER/CITY CLERK 
• CHIEF BUILDING OFFICIAL
• CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER 
• CITY CLERK 
• EXECUTIVE SECRETARY/CITY CLERK 
• TECHNICIAN CIVILIAN COMMANDER 
• COMMUNITY PRESERVATION OFFICER 
• COMMUNITY SERVICES DIRECTOR 
• DEPUTY CITY ATTORNEY 
• DEPUTY CITY CLERK 
• CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER MANAGER 
• DIRECTOR/ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND HOUSING DIRECTOR/PLANNING AND BUILDING DIRECTOR/PUBLIC WORKS/CITY ENGINEER 
• FINANCE DIRECTOR 
• FIRE CHIEF 
• HUMAN RESOURCES ASSISTANT 
• HUMAN RESOURCES TECHNICIAN 
• INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYST I INFORMATION SYSTEMS ANALYST 1/ 
• INFORMATION SYSTEMS MANAGER
• MANAGEMENT ANALYST OFFICE ASSISTANT 1/ - 
• CONFIDENTIAL PARALEGAL 
• POLICE CAPTAIN 
• POLICE CHIEF 
• POLICE SERVICES MANAGER 
• PUBLIC WORKS SUPERINTENDENT 
• RECREATING MANAGER 
• RECREATION SUPERVISOR 
• SENIOR CENTER MANAGER