PORT ANGELES — Proposed 2015 wage increases for the city’s employees will be modeled after a 2 percent wage hike unanimously approved Tuesday by the City Council for 21 fire department personnel who are members of the International Association of Firefighters Local 656.
The 2 percent cost-of-living increase, contained in the firefighters’ new one-year contract, is already included in the city’s proposed 2015 budget for the firefighters at a cost of $38,688, Abbi Fountain, city human resources manager, said Wednesday.
Fountain said the hike also is in the spending plan for employees in five other unions who have yet to negotiate new contracts and for management and non-represented personnel.
“This is all subject to negotiations,” she said of the remaining increases.
If the contracts are approved, the city’s approximately 230 regular full- and part-time employees, including management and non-represented personnel, would receive the wage hike at a cost of $230,000 to the city.
Remaining talks
The unions the city has yet to negotiate with are two locals affiliated with the Teamsters Union and locals with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and a supervisory unit newly affiliated with the International Union of Operating Engineers.
The contract approved by council members Tuesday extends other provisions of the existing agreement for one year and was proposed in July by Local 656.
Fire Chief Ken Dubuc said Wednesday that call-outs have increased significantly over last year’s record.
He said emergency personnel responded to 3,350 calls as of Oct. 21, about 400 ahead of last year.
“There were 16 calls [Tuesday] alone,” Dubuc said.
The department’s 15 to 26 volunteers, who receive minimum wage to $15 an hour and are compensated for a minimum of two hours per call, are not affected by the new contract, Dubuc said.
The 2 percent increase is 90 percent of what the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics calls the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers.
‘Proactive’
“The firefighter union was very proactive with their proposal, and it has set the stage for what is hoped to be a very successful round of settlements,” Fountain said in her memo to the City Council on the contract.
Councilman Brad Collins noted that the firefighters’ union was one of the last bargaining units to agree to a contract in 2014.
“I think it’s great that they moved forward like this,” he said.
“I believe it will help us with the other bargaining units.”
Councilwoman Cherie Kidd called the pact “a very fair contract, and I’m happy to support it.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
