Standoff at Claremont city hall

By BILL CHAISSON
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CLAREMONT — Forty-two city employees represented by AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) have been working without a contract since the end of December 2017. Negotiations are presently at an impasse; AFSCME representatives made an offer to the city, which has been represented by City Manager Ryan McNutt, in August, but they have yet to get a response.

According to AFSCME negotiator Steve Kilmer there are four points of disagreement between the union, Local 1348, and the city. First, the new contract offered by the city includes a clause that allows them to evaluate an employee’s “fitness for duty.” The language of this provision, said Kilmer, allows the city to send the employee to a physician of the city’s choosing for any perceived physical or mental problem. “There is no protection for the employee,” Kilmer said, “nothing about being for the betterment of the employee, so it can be used to terminate the employee.”

The language in question was written by attorneys, said McNutt, and is “not final language.” The city manager said that the city has been looking at how other cities have addressed the fitness for duty question and is “trying to find the most neutral language that achieves the same result.” The desired result from McNutt’s perspective is one that protects both the city and the employees.

The city also plans to go from a weekly pay cycle to a biweekly one. Kilmer said that AFSCME would like to know in what year the city plans to do this . There are two AFSCME contracts in the City of Claremont government, one for public works employees and one for clerical workers. Kilmer said they have the lowest wages among city employees, so it is important for them to plan for any change in their pay cycle.

McNutt said that the city will not change to a biweekly pay cycle before 2021. It will take that long because this shift will have to be negotiated with all of the unions that represent city workers, including those for police and firefighters. He could not say in exactly what year after 2021 that the shift would occur, in part because talks with the other unions have not get taken place.

The third issue is related to pay: potential changes in the cost of healthcare plans offered by the city. Kilmer said that city was going to cut healthcare benefits in the sense that the deductibles would be rising to $3,000 and the wages of the AFSCME members are not high enough to cover costs that may arise after that increase.

When asked for an example of how another city has dealt with this situation, Kilmer said that the City of Lebanon was creating a health savings account for employees that would cover 100 percent of their deductible in the first year of the new healthcare plan and then cover progressively less of it over several years.

McNutt had not heard of this plan in Lebanon, but noted that the tax base of that city was several times larger than that of Claremont. The present tax base of Claremont gives him only about $500,000 to work with.

The city manager said that no new healthcare plan has yet been selected. He had only presented various alternatives to the union representatives. “They do have a higher cost to the employees,” he said. “We did offer higher pay, but they turned that down.” He said that the city had budgeted for an increase in healthcare costs between 7 and 9 percent and that it looked like it was going to come in with 8-percent increase.

For his part Kilmer said that the wages offered by the city were not sufficient to offset the increase in the healthcare premiums. McNutt said that it was the clerical workers who were more concerned about wages and the public works employees were more focused on changes in the healthcare plan.

Kilmer said that AFSCME began approaching the city about a new contract several months before the end of last year, but did not get a response until late December. They began meeting every week to two weeks until May when they reached the current impasse. The parties sat down with a mediator from the New Hampshire Public Employees Relations Board in June. This lead to the current offer on the table, which was presented in August.

This evening between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m., the hour before the city council meeting, AFSCME members picketed with placards that made passing motorist aware of their situation. McNutt came out of city hall to speak with union members on the sidewalk, saying that it had been a very busy couple of months, implying that this is why they have not received a response from the city.

Steve Lyons, the AFSCME regional coordinator, said that the union believes some members of the city council are not entirely up to speed on the state of the negotiation. Therefore they attended this evenings meeting to request being made an agenda item at a future meeting. 

“Our members have been going to work day in and day out to serve the residents of Claremont,” said local President John Lynch. “We just want to be treated fairly. The city manager has been taking unreasonable positions on several items that outline terms and conditions of employment and we want the public to know the extent of what we do to make Claremont a community we can all be proud of.”