Camden County labor woes drag on

All at once, the workers hovering at the back of the meeting room filed through the audience, carrying signs with cartoon drawings of rats and pigs in top hats.

They took seats, quietly at first, but then union leader Karl R. Walko began to admonish the Camden County administration for its latest offer in a two-year battle over salary and benefits. As he spoke, out came a series of artfully timed whistles that managed to stir the children sleeping in the audience.

After that meeting last Thursday, County Freeholder Jeff Nash, whose 18 years on the board make him its senior member, said he had gotten used to such disruptions.

"This is labor negotiations," he said. "Everyone wants low taxes. This is difficult, but people in large numbers are really struggling."

The county's contract with Camden County Council 10 - the county's largest union, representing about 900 workers - expired at the end of 2007.

As negotiations have dragged on, county employees have watched coworkers leave and their positions go unfilled. For years, Camden County has been moving toward what officials say is a more streamlined bureaucracy that costs less to run, without cutting government services such as welfare programs and road maintenance.

Through a one-time early-retirement program in 2005 and the ongoing attrition policy, county freeholders have reduced the employee ranks from about 2,400 to 1,750, bringing down the property-tax levy 2.5 percent to $242 million over the last three years.

The cuts have riled county employees, who are working at a faster pace while facing the prospect of a new contract with less desirable benefits and pay scales, said Walko, the Council 10 president.

"People are getting stressed out like they never were before," he said. "Somebody's got to do the work no matter if you consolidate or not."

The changes in Camden County reflect a significant shift from the past, when a county job traditionally meant decent pay and job security, said Ingrid Reed of the Eagleton Institute at Rutgers University, which studies government and politics.

"When you have a legislature where districts are made up of pieces of counties, counties were a place you could get jobs for people. That was seen as a politically smart thing to do," she said. "When you're in difficult financial straits, you start to do what has not typically been the case for counties: downsize."

But while Camden County has cut back, spending by county governments across New Jersey has increased 11.5 percent from 2006 to 2008, before the recession, according to state data.

Camden County Administrator Ross Angilella declined to be interviewed, citing the sensitive nature of the negotiations, but did issue a statement.

"As Camden County government faces the challenge of managing through difficult economic times, we need to protect the taxpayers' interests while being fair to our employees," the statement read. "We believe that our offer to Council #10 employees is fair and provides much needed reform for taxpayers."

According to Walko, the latest offer from the county asks that employees start at a lower pay scale and begin contributing to health-care premiums - $600 to $2,200 a year - and ties retiree benefits to the terms of the latest contract negotiation.

As the workers have been functioning on a contract that expired at the end of 2007, they have not had a raise in two years. The latest proposal from Camden County would give them a retroactive pay increase provided they agree to the terms of the deal by tomorrow; Walko said he has no intention of complying.

"My sense is this is negotiable. There's no intention on our part to drag this out," he said. "We need to know where the county is on health benefits before we talk about wages. That's where we're hung up."

The county is at a four-year impasse with PBA Local 351, which represents about 330 corrections officers. That negotiation has gone into binding arbitration, with a resolution expected this year, said union president Rob Parker.

While Walko says he is still hopeful a deal can be worked out, the union has requested that the state provide an independent mediator to join them at the negotiating table.

Between now and then, those freeholders whose terms are coming up will stand in an election virtually nobody expects them to lose. Nonetheless, Nash said he had been going door to door to talk to voters and was hearing constantly about the impact of the economic downturn over the last year.

"They want to hear about elected officials representing their interests," Nash said.