From The Sacramento Bee, June 26

SACRAMENTO, CA – When the Sacramento city fire union sent out a press release Tuesday touting the virtues of a contract concession that involved a freeze on firefighter pay for one year, it may have seemed like a deal the cash-strapped city would jump at.

And for two City Council members – Steve Cohn and Lauren Hammond – it was something they could get behind.

In the end, they were the only ones.

What the fire union did not make public was that the proposal included a 5 percent raise for firefighters next year – when economic conditions in the city are expected to be as bad as they are now. That raise would also take effect as police officers – whose union agreed to salary concessions months ago – are due a 2 percent raise.

That element ended up killing the proposal, according to members of the City Council contacted Wednesday. The council voted 7-2 in a closed session to turn down the offer. Cohn and Hammond were the two aye votes.

"We're not going to be out of the woods a year from now," Councilman Robbie Waters said. "To have them get their 5 percent when we don't even know if it's going to get worse doesn't make sense."

It appears to be a near certainty that as many as 68 firefighters will lose their jobs next Thursday. Assistant City Manager Gus Vina said the city has officially walked away from the negotiating table with the firefighters union.

While Cohn said he was aware a 5 percent raise was part of the union proposal, other council members said they did not find out about that element until walking in the door of Tuesday's closed session. Cohn said he still supported the idea because it would give the city and fire union time to cool off from long and contentious negotiations.

"It wasn't my preferred strategy, but we were at an impasse," Cohn said.

Fire union spokesman Chris Harvey told The Bee on Wednesday that there was no 5 percent raise – or any defined raise – written into the proposal. He went on to say the offer was for a one-year contract and that the city and union would go back to the table in January to begin talking about a new contract that would begin in July 2010.

"It was pretty straightforward," he said. "We thought it was a done deal, we thought it was fair to all parties involved."

Hammond said that was her understanding as well.

"I'm completely confident that if we had all agreed to a one-year contract and things were worse (in 2010), I'm sure the firefighters would have gone another year without a raise," she said.

However, The Bee obtained a copy of the fire union's proposal. It says firefighters would receive a 5 percent raise on June 19, 2010 – the final day of the one-year contract.

The timing of the proposal's release also raised concerns.

Vina, the city's chief negotiator, said he was sitting across the table from fire union representatives Tuesday when a press release from the union arrived on his BlackBerry via e-mail promoting its latest proposal.

Union representatives had arrived at the meeting more than an hour late and had asked to discuss the impact of firefighter layoffs before getting into their proposal.

Vina immediately left the table, and fire union representatives eventually unveiled the full details of their proposal to the remaining city negotiators.

According to Vina, the proposal was "stacked with all kinds of goodies," including the 5 percent raise, paid time off and senior-officer benefits.

"It felt like a kick in the gut to pull these shenanigans," Vina said.

And as irritated as city officials appear to be with the fire union, the union is just as angry at city negotiators.

On Wednesday, the union said it would file charges of unfair bargaining practices against the city. In a written statement, Harvey said the city had used "intimidation tactics" and made "broken promises" in the months-long saga.

"The city's rejection of the firefighters' fair and reasonable deal supported by Council members Lauren Hammond and Steve Cohn to take pay cuts in return for no layoffs clearly shows that the city's intent all along was to lay off firefighters," Harvey said.

As it stands, firefighters who keep their jobs will get a 5 percent raise next month. Their current contract expires at the end of this year, meaning both sides will be back at the negotiating table as soon as September.

If these talks are any indication, it won't be pretty. "In my mind there are three stakeholders (that the union) misread and misunderstood: the community, which is a huge stakeholder, their own membership, and the City Council," Vina said. "They missed the mark on all three of those."

Said Harvey: "The whole process has been way too contentious; there's been a lot of mistrust developed. The city has clearly negotiated in bad faith."