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Police Union To Offer Contract Concessions

SCRANTON — The Scranton police department has given the city a belated Christmas gift. They have agreed to make concessions in their contract to help save...
scr labor relations

SCRANTON -- The Scranton police department has given the city a belated Christmas gift. They have agreed to make concessions in their contract to help save the city money.

But the goodwill is also a way to save their jobs.

City officials said that this may be the only time in Scranton's history that a labor union opened up a current contract for negotiations.

The contract concessions that the police union announced on Wednesday represent a big change in the relationship between city hall and the police union. It hasn't been a good relationship for more than a decade.

Some Scrantonians can't remember a time when city hall and its labor unions worked so well together in the best interest of the city.

Flanked by police officers, Mayor Bill Courtright announced he achieved one of his campaign promises getting the police union to agree on contract concessions.

Police officers would double their pension contribution to six percent.

The department would restructure ranked officers and adjust the pay scale.

Those changes would cut back on overtime costs by almost $400,000.

And maybe the most significant change, the police union has agreed to drop three potentially costly arbitration suits.

In total, the mayor says the concessions could save the city $1 million per year.

But, what do the officers get out of it?

The union says they earn stability since the contract would last until 2021. Plus, officers would receive annual pay increases. They went without from 2002 to 2010.

"We're all taxpayers and we know where the city's going. We, at least, we see a future, hopefully, in this city and that's why we agreed to open this contract up. So, it passed overwhelmingly. I think the members, they, we're happy with it, but they know we had to make concessions and that's what we did," said Scranton Fraternal Order of Police official Paul Helring.

"We're not going to hopefully be looking at any major arbitration award. We know what salary increase there are going to be. It's stability for them, it's also stability for us when we go into future budgets," said Mayor Courtright.

There's of course a catch in this plan, set to affect city residents. To earn money, the police department plans to move two clerical workers onto the street to enforce illegal parking. Those in violation would be fined $25.

Residents had mixed reviews of that catch and the police concessions.

"Usually, always, they want to spend more money. I think it would be nice to finally see something diminish where it doesn't need to be," said Scott Jefferson.

"I just can't get over that they're going to have people, actual two officers, enforcing parking. I understand they need money but come on, crime is crazy around here," said Anthony Kilker.

The newly revised police contract needs approval from city council.

The mayor says he plans to ask each of the city's three other labor unions to also make concessions.

The mayor is also going to appeal to the fire union, and as one police officer put it, they'd be "nuts" not to at least come to the table.

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