Are there any others? SPEAKER: Yes. The Municipal Authority. Until very recently the Penns Landing Corporation was part of the quasi group. They have dropped out of the quasi and instituted their own plan. The Parking Authority has about 500 and 600 employees. They are the bulk of the quasis. There are less than 900 people now. 453 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 PHDC is also included. PIDC used to be included; they separated and reinstituted their own pension plan a few years ago.
Any other questions? Seeing no one, no questions, I would ask these fine witnesses to step to the side. I think there are other people who wish to testify.
I think we have representatives of the unions. Please identify yourself for the record.
Thank you. Good evening my name is Carol Stooks (ph). I am the representative of District Council 47. Also I am a Pension Board trustee for District Council 48.
I am the District Council 47 treasure and business agent for Local 2186.
Robert Baxter Communications Director for District council 47.
Do you have prepared testimony, or would you just like to 454 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 summarize.
Not 100 percent. We do support the bill with some exceptions. And that was -- we support both of the bills, the bind bill -- we support that bill and we also support the recode bill with the two amendments that Councilman Dave Cohen presented to you this evening.
Suppose the administration opposes the five-year vest bill? What will your position be then.
We will still support the bill. We will just probably take it to negotiations. We are trying to look for something fair and equitable here, the same as Councilman Nutter just proposed for himself and other two council --
In other words, the administration hasn't made any commitment on the five-year vests, seeming to indicate the 455 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 first amendment probably was not a problem. And I am just curious as to whether or not if the five-year vest is opposed by the administration and/or by the majority of the members of this council, does that affect your support for the bills?
We still support the bond bill. We think it is an important bill to deal with the unfunded pension liability. And while we would like support on both of our issues, we would still support the recodification even if it was the unfortunate five-year vesting amendment failed.
Thank you. That's important to us. What I would like to do though is make sure that we have you to talk to representative of the administration and Mr. Erickson so that we can make sure that there is no misunderstanding about it and that we at least have all of our facts straight. I mean, if it's for example just a revenue neutral bill, we just need to no that or any other problems that are associated with it. 456 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 But I would like you to make sure that they understand the amendment and we can get a real clear story on it. Okay?
Thank you very much. We appreciate your patience in staying to the end.
Is there anyone he is who wishes to testify on these bills? The Chair recognizes Councilman Nutter.
Just a quick point of information. Is it my understanding that on this five-year vesting issue that this is one of possibly just a couple narrow issues where the decision can be made either at the negotiating table or by legislative action of the council to decide this particular issue? Is that my understanding of this; either it can be done here or it can be done as a part of the collective bargaining process between the unions and the 457 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 executive?
I think it can be done at either place, but I don't know whether or not it is that simple.
I just don't know. I mean the administration wants to take a look at it. And I am sure -- Mr. Hayllar is here, if you want him to comment on it right now.
If he has a perspective, that's fine. I just want to know what the real issue is. And, again, it seems to be one it could be decided here or it can be decided somewhere else under collective bargaining. We don't normally, for the most part, get involved in -- by law -- in the finite details of collective bargaining agreements. This just seems to be one of a couple of narrow issues where it can go either way. I mean, what of the pluses and minuses to it being done here or being done in collective bargaining?
Are you talking about 458 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 the five-year vest --
-- for District 47? Well, clearly we believe management and labor should settle these disputes between themselves and not have to go to City Council to settle things that they couldn't get during the negotiation process. We believe --
Because we are not at the table. Again, this seems to be a narrow issue that we actually could do the --
Well, a five-year vest is not a narrow issue since it deals with a large number of people and you make --
Well, I don't mean that the issue is narrow. There are a million issues that get negotiated. 999,999 of them usually don't end up over here.
So what I mean 459 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 when I say "a narrow issue," it is one of maybe just a couple in the universe of a million that whatever end up over here for us to do anything with, we don't negotiate contracts.
I think even if this issue were negotiated, it would probably have to be legislation that would be brought over here in order to amended the pension law to conform to the agreement. I think we recently did something with the PGW. Didn't we have that public hearing?
So then it becomes a process issue of does it come here first and get done essentially almost without the administration, or does it come as a result of a decision made between these executive and the labor unions and then they've agreed to it and 460 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 then we were just implementing what came out of the agreement. Is that what this comes down to?
Is there a fiscal implication? Not the five-year vest versus a ten-year vest.
Not immediately. There is an administrative problem that the pension fund would have to deal with and what that's going to incur in cost, at some point to the pension staff to be able to implement this. I would have to read the Cohen Amendment.
You may need to dedicate time to implementing this. This becomes a subset of another pension plan because you have ten year and five year vests within the same fund. It may be administratively a problem, which is going to cause an allocation of time of staff to fix it. I would have to see Councilman Cohen's amendment, because as I understand it, 461 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 the 47 is proposing that they pay the employees' share for the five-year vest; that would be rationed up. But there would be a difference to what the City would have to pay on the City's contribution. I would have to check to see what that is. Fundamentally we don't -- we think that collective bargaining will lose its force if the parties can come here to get stuff they couldn't get at the table. If you know they can do that, why do you want to negotiate. And we want to be in a position where we can negotiate these issues.
All right. Lastly, is there any reason to think that if this wasn't done here and it is being raised by District Council 47, do we have any information on the perspective of the other three public employee unions on five-year vesting?
All right. So you are anticipating a ripple effect -- 462 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843
The person before you suggested that all of the parties get together on these amendments so we can have a clear statement of position, and you mentioned a number of people. I have requested Mr. Shapiro of our legal staff to be working on these amendments. And I wanted to ask that he be included, because he is representing the point of view of the amendments, and we want all of the parties to be together. He has been working with Mr. Erickson all day long. And from time to time with the administration representatives.
Just so we don't get different opinions at different time.
Councilman Cohen, Mr. Shapiro came over and introduced himself very 463 11/30/98 - WHOLE - BILL NO. 980843 graciously, so we will be in touch with each other immediately. Thank you.
Anything further? Is there anyone else that wishes to testify on any of the bills that is are in front of the committee? Can we get somebody to go out on the sidewalk to see if we can get somebody? Seeing no one, this Committee will stand in recess until Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m.. Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. And think I think that is December 3rd. Thursday morning, December 3rd, 8:30 a.m. (Adjourned at 7:05 p.m.) - - - 464 CERTIFICATE I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing proceedings of the Council of Philadelphia of Monday, November 30, 1998 were reported and accurately transcribed by me and that this is a true and correct transcript of same. RE: COUNCIL COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE BILL NO.'S - 980784, 980785, 980788, 980787, 980796, 980789 and 980848 ______________________________ BERNADETTE M. BLACK, RPR and Notary Public (The foregoing certification of this transcript does not apply to any reproduction of the same by any means, unless under the direct control and/or supervision of the certifying reporter.)