During the Aug. 23 City Council meeting representatives of Teamsters Local 14 were invited to publicly participate with the City in labor contract negotiations. On Aug. 31, through their attorney, Adam Levine, the Teamsters declined the invitation stating that negotiations in a public forum would discourage candid discourse and encourage grandstanding and pandering.
The City extended this offer in good faith hoping that by holding public negotiations the current level of candid discourse would increase and the level of grandstanding and pandering would decrease; because the public would be able to see and judge for themselves whether or not the parties are acting reasonably and fairly with each other.
“I am disappointed that the Union did not accept the City’s offer to publicly negotiate. I believe that it would provide a level of transparency and understanding heretofore unrealized in the negotiation process,” said the City’s chief negotiator Bob Sweetin.
Since the beginning of negotiations the City has made three official written offers and multiple counteroffers. Each of the City’s offers provided for pay increases for City employees. Unfortunately it appears that, based on comments made during that Aug. 23 City Council meeting, these offers were not given to nor voted on by the general membership.
Teamsters Local 14 is the labor union that represents city employees that are not part of a public safety collective bargaining group or part of management.
The next round of negotiations begin on Sep. 14 however, Teamsters is requesting that those meetings remain private.
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Of course, we don’t the public to hear what they are paying for! If it’s public money, we deserve to know all the details!
The city is crazy for thinking this idea would ever fly.
Negotiations are done in private- that is just the way it works.
The only good thing that would come out of it would be sweetin, hafen and rapson make complete fools of themselfs.
Hafen and rapson know NOTHING. About negotiations.
End this futile moronic attempt and just give these people a fair raise.
CITY- YOU LOST !
And hafen- stick to your farm and rapson- continue being geno’s
Boy- that is what you 2 are good at.
Of course they should be private. Time for the city to fire their attorney. Seems very inept. Seems like the city council members, Hafen and crew needs some civic lessons.
We who pay the pills, deserve to know ALL the details!
Of course they aren’t going to negotiate in public. That is not the process. The city is acting like it has never negotiated a union contract before. Look even the union members are not privy to negotiations until the bargaining committee reaches a Tentative Agreement with the city.
All of this is done behind closed doors in the hopes of actually achieving an agreement. Imagine involving the public and all of the voices that would want to be heard. That would be a case of way too many Chefs and not enough Cooks in the kitchen.
The fact the city already lost in arbitration should be reason enough to know they have little to no ground to stand on in the pay issue. Unfortunately the city made the decision to give raises the way they did and it costs us as the public because they failed to read the contract they are bound by. It isn’t a union being greedy, it is simply a union enforcing and protecting their contract.
Now get to the table, both sides, and bargain in good faith. Otherwise privatize the jobs so we can move forward.
Hey Sweeten, Rapson, Hafen…and any of the others who “represent the City”, Contracts are negotiated between the representatives of the parties and then agreed terms are presented to the Union Membership or the City Council to approve or not. The foolishness and anti-union crap by some in the City needs to stop. Saying that every proposal made by the City should go to a vote of the entire Union Membership is as foolish as saying that every contract the City negotiates needs to go to s vote of the entire population! I would have really liked the opportunity to vote against the contract for a Million Dollars to build a $400,0000 splash pad that was awarded without a vote of the citizens. We are in a representative form of government. In all my life I have NEVER heard of a City proposing that the negotiations between the Employee Union take place in a public forum. How absurd. Hey City – if you wanna write up a list of what YOU have offered and compare it to what the Union requests or to what you have already previously agreed to, then do it. I am sure it will get published, but it is really poor form and shows very bad judgement to try to litigate your claims in Public. You had a deal with the Employees. You have tried every trick in the book to get out of living up to it. To try to grandstand in a public meeting to denigrate your employees is disgusting and classless. Your blind hatred of working people getting a fair shake is showing.
Amen johninnv!
And let us not forget about the $80 grand that they pissed away on the vegas atty they got to negotiate a few yrs ago – hey rapson- where was the taxpayers dog in the fight on that one ?
What is truly disturbing is you hear nothing from green and the mayor on this , the 2 people whom i voted for to change the hafen ,rapson ,geno old boy culture on the council and city.
We know rapson is geno’s boy and those 2 are only on the council to benefit and push anything through that benefits Premier realty and protect there interests.
Hafen is only on there to protect the big boys from salt lake city and bust the union.
Green says and does nothing – a big disappointment.
The mayor says or does nothing- another disappointment.
Rapson is a delusional punk who only protects his boss ,geno and protects premier.
It appears hafen and rapson are actively working to bust the union, and have got support all around the council and mayor, for whatever reason.
Next election ,time to clean house and get some functional people in there- some younger people – these antiques and self serving punks on the council and mayor gotta go.
By the way MLN – how about telling us WHO wrote this “special to the MLN”. We really deserve to know WHO among our elected or un-elected City representatives. decided they had the authority to represent what the City’s position is and denigrate the organization that represent our City Employees. Was this communication authorized by the City Council? The Mayor? The City Manager? Is the position stated in this column the official position of the City? We deserve to know.
It is a press release from the City Liason Officer.
Terry – i doubt it.
Top suspects are hafen,rapson , mayor, geno.
Or the LAZYON did it with all or one of the above’s direction.
Let us just call the top suspects “THE CITY OF MESQUITE UNION BUSTING DEPT” – under the direction of the mayor.
This is not my fight, I have no personal stake in the union, the city or their decisions on labor contracts. I don’t pay into the city tax system nor do I or any of my friends or relatives work for the city. I don’t know who has the authority to direct anyone to write a press release but all press releases from the city come from the same person; The city liason officer. Again, just because we report on a situation or event doesn’t mean that we do or don’t support it. The MLN hasn’t taken any position on anything other than our obligation to report the facts to the public as we get them, nor have I.