County ups offer to union

Clark County has offered higher salary increases to staff affiliated with the Service Employees International Union in its latest offer in negotiations.

The 2.5 percent salary increase for 2014, retroactive to July 1, is an increase from the county’s prior offer of a 1.5 percent increase, according to a memorandum that County Manager Don Burnette sent department heads and elected officials last week.

The offer comes as the county and union continue to disagree about whether to end longevity pay for new, future employees. The county wants to end longevity pay for future hires, estimating it would save $358 million in the next three decades. The SEIU has fought to preserve longevity pay.

The county’s offer of a 2.5 percent salary bump is made on the condition of ending longevity pay for future employees.

Unless the two sides reach an agreement, they will go to binding arbitration, with a decision coming next year.

Burnette’s memo calls it an “effort to bring this bargaining process to a conclusion that does not require submitting the dispute to an arbitrator.”

“We believe this is a very compelling offer and we remain hopeful that it will lead to a quick resolution of the bargaining process,” Burnette wrote in the memorandum.

County spokesman Erik Pappa declined to comment Monday, citing the ongoing negotiations.

Martin Bassick, president of the SEIU Local 1107, said he hopes the differences can be resolved soon through negotiations without an arbitrator. He declined to comment on the specifics of the county’s proposal because of the ongoing negotiations.

“This process is still ongoing and I’m still hopeful we’re going to work it out outside of arbitration,” Bassick said.

The remaining aspects of the county’s offer for a three-year contract are unchanged. The county has offered a 2 percent wage increase effective July 1, 2015, and any raises in the third year would be subject to negotiations in 2016.

Longevity pay kicks in after an employee has been on the job for eight years, paying 0.57 percent of the worker’s base pay for each year of service in an annual lump sum.

The county and SEIU, which represents about 5,000 county staffers who work in areas such as the Department of Family Services and the Department of Aviation, started negotiations in June 2013.

Both sides have recognized that negotiations have been difficult.

SEIU attorney Michael Urban notified Clark County in a Feb. 10 letter than the union and Clark County have reached an “impasse on negotiations” and requested binding arbitration.

Longevity pay for new hires has been phased out gradually since 2002 with 11 other Clark County employee groups, including park police, prosecutors and firefighters.

However, the county lost a recent arbitration case this year involving the SEIU’s bargaining unit for University Medical Center staff. The arbitrator decided that the county cannot eliminate longevity pay for future hires at the public hospital.

County firefighters received a 1.5 percent cost-of-living increase in July. Metropolitan Police Department officers were awarded two cost-of-living increases totaling 1.5 percent in a one-year award after going to binding arbitration in 2013.

Contact Ben Botkin at bbotkin@reviewjournal.com or 702-405-9781. Follow @BenBotkin1 on Twitter.