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Is there Wiggle Room for the City’s Unions?

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If the City does not adopt the Amended Act 47 plan by June 30th, one City Council member foresees a major problem: the City’s public safety unions will begin contract negotiations (under Act 111) in what would best be described as a state of flux. The City would be fiscally distressed, but it would not have a plan to guide its upcoming years. Therefore, the Council member feels that "The police and fire unions will go into arbitration and the arbitrator will probably provide them with an award that we cannot afford".

Could this happen? We know that under Act 47, Section 252 a collective bargaining agreement "executed after the adoption of a plan shall not in any manner violate, expand, or diminish its provisions". Now the City is in Act 47 and has been since 2004, so it would be a stretch to think that an arbitrator could infer that the police and fire union could be awarded contract provisions that could deviate from the requirements of Act 47 because the amendment has not been adopted.

Note that the language says "after the adoption of a plan"; reason would point to the plan adopted in 2004, no matter how many times it gets amended in the future. DCED data shows that several municipalities across the state (Aliquippa, Johnstown, and West Hazelton) are operating under amended plans. Section 249 of the statute notes that an amendment can be "initiated by the coordinator, the chief executive officer or the governing body". The official DCED order of July, 2008 states that "it is ordered that the distress status for the City of Pittsburgh…shall be continued". That grew out of City Council’s request to have Act 47 lifted and, failing that, to have a blueprint provided by the state to guide the City out of troubled financial waters. That’s what the City got: elected officials and public sector unions just don’t like it.

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