PORT ANGELES — A two-year labor contract has been approved that gives 100 city workers an overall wage increase of more than 7 percent through December 2020.
With no discussion, the Port Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved the hike for employees including customer service representatives, administrative assistants, planning staff and utility workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
The AFSCME Local 1619-represented employees affected by the contract make an average wage of about $20 an hour, Human Resources Manager Abbi Fountain said Wednesday.
The overall cost of the contract to the city is $407,000, including an increase of $44,000 in 2019.
The employees will receive a retroactive cost-of-living adjustment of 2 percent beginning Jan. 1 and a retroactive 1.1 percent wage hike beginning June 1.
They will receive a 1.4 percent cost-of-living adjustment Jan. 1, 2020, and a 2.5 percent wage hike June 1, 2020.
Employees travelling as passengers for work-related business also will receive, for the first time, compensatory hours for travel time.
Compensatory time also was increased from 80 hours to 96 hours, and three days of bereavement leave were added to the total allowed.
By comparison, Local 1619-represented employees received a 3 percent cost-of-living increase for 2018.
Fountain said 100 percent of the Consumer Price Index for all Washington cities for June 2018 to June 2019 was employed instead of the CPI for Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue, the standard for past labor negotiations.
“We changed from that because we were not necessarily comfortable with comparing our area to that of Seattle, Tacoma and Bellevue,” she said.
“Other agencies on the Peninsula use the all-cities CPI. We wanted to be in line with what they were looking at for cost-of-living adjustments, wage increases, that sort of thing.”
Mayor Sissi Bruch said Wednesday that council members extensively discussed the labor contract in closed session, as is allowed by the state Open Meetings Act.
“There has been a lot of discussion back and forth,” Bruch said. “Staff has negotiated with them from council direction.”
The wage increases are more than what “a lot of folks would be getting” in Port Angeles, Bruch said.
“But there’s other union groups, not from the city, but in the city that are also potentially getting more. This result is what everyone felt was fair.
“Like a good compromise, it’s what everyone can live with.”
Bruch said the average salary in Port Angeles is just over $40,000.
“Keep in mind that we also have to keep city staff,” she said. “When other cities are paying more, we also lose staff and can’t provide the services out there.
“That’s the balance that we have to play.”
Contracts with four other smaller union local representing police, emergency communications, electrical workers and fire department personnel were approved earlier this year.
“They all have similarly received cost-of-living adjustments and-or market adjustments,” Fountain said.
________
Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
