Oceanside Workers Picket in Protest Over Pay

Armed with placards, members of this city’s three major employee unions joined forces Wednesday and marched in front of City Hall as part of an “informational” picket line to alert the public to their gripes over stalled contract negotiations.

Police officers, firefighters and other municipal employees have been working since July 1 without contracts, a situation union leaders say is unprecedented in the city’s recent history.

The key issue dividing the city and each of the unions is salaries. While city officials insist the pay increases they’re offering workers are consistent with those provided in other local municipalities, union leaders maintain the hikes fall far short of putting Oceanside employees on a par with workers in comparable cities.

Hoping to gain added bargaining power, the three employee associations agreed to join in an effort to put pressure on the city.

Aside from picketing City Hall, the unions plan to work on behalf of pro-labor candidates during the upcoming November council race and, perhaps, sponsor a ballot initiative to put the salary issue before voters. The group has already gotten the backing of one prospective council candidate, former Councilwoman Melba Bishop, who walked with the pickets on Wednesday.

So far, the union leaders say, the effort to both publicize and politicize the labor issue seems to be paying off. As about 40 union members toting cardboard signs marched outside City Hall on Wednesday, the City Council huddled behind closed doors for more than two hours, finally emerging to order management to return to the bargaining table.

It was a small victory in what union officials say may prove to be a drawn-out battle.

“Maybe they’re getting realistic now,” said Elena Cipriano, president of the Oceanside City Employees Assn., a 165-member union representing employees ranging from secretaries to maintenance workers. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”

Cipriano and other union leaders say they feel the solidarity shown by the three employee groups ultimately will push the City Council toward a more conciliatory tack in the talks.

In recent weeks, the discussions have been anything but friendly. State mediators have been called in to help with talks involving both the general employees and firefighters, but in each case it proved of little help.

“For us, I think it’s going to be a long time before this is resolved,” said Matt Rielly, spokesman for the 60-member Oceanside Firefighters Assn. “In the meantime, the City Council has done irreparable damage to the morale of the Fire Department.”

As the union leaders see it, city employees tightened their belts during the lean years of the early 1980s with the understanding that they would receive compensation once good times returned. Now, with development booming in Oceanside and the city treasury flush with money, the employee groups are eager to get their share.

“They asked us to please wait until things were better and we’ll make up for it,” Rielly said. “Now times are better, the economy is better, and we’re asking the city to make up that difference.”

Cipriano agreed. “They wanted us to make concessions in the past,” she said. “Now when they have the money, they don’t want to make amends with the employee groups who helped them during their lean periods.”

Rielly and other labor leaders speculate that city officials are reluctant to live up to that promise because the council has committed the city to several multimillion-dollar projects, among them a new $20-million civic center and $5 million in renovations to the pier.

“The city may have overextended themselves,” he said. “I think they’re worried about how they’re going to finance all those projects, and that’s carried over into the negotiations.”

City officials were reluctant to comment on such claims. Mayor Larry Bagley did not return a reporter’s phone call. Janet Martin, a city spokeswoman, said officials do not want to negotiate in the newspaper.

“We really don’t want to do this in the media,” Martin said Wednesday. “We’re just hoping to get back to the bargaining table.”

City firefighters are holding out for a 8% salary hike, while city negotiators have offered a 4% raise, Rielly said.

Police want either a 8% salary increase for one year or a 15% increase spread across two years, but the city is offering a two-year contract featuring a hike of 4% each year, according to Ed Selby, chairman of the Oceanside Police Officers Assn.

On paper at least, the general employees are closest to settling. Cipriano said her association wants a two-year deal, with wage increases of 6.5% for each of the years. The city has offered either a one-year contract with a wage and benefit increase of about 5% or a two-year deal with a similar pay and benefit hike during each of the years, she said.

Although the firefighters have ruled out the possibility of a strike, both the police and general employee unions have toyed with the idea. Officials from both groups, however, insist that such a step would be taken only as a last resort.

Aside from salaries, the three unions have other gripes, chief among them the charge that city officials have failed to keep the number of employees abreast with an ever-increasing workload.

In the Fire Department, not a single new firefighter position has been added in 12 years, a period in which the number of calls has jumped by 50%, Rielly said. The workload for police and general employees has also increased in recent years while the number of employees has remained stagnant, union officials said.

“We have a population that’s just booming,” Cipriano said, “but we don’t have enough employees to cover all the services that are needed. The public is going to be upset before too long.”