Fair deal for city, workers

Philadelphia's tentative agreement with its largest union promises an equitable truce after years of tension. City workers should ratify it.

The $127 million deal between the city and AFSCME District Council 33 offers taxpayers important concessions on labor costs and flexibility while giving employees appropriate raises after years of drought. Its greatest failing is its short remaining life span, which isn't even half as long as the preceding standoff.

Announced last week, the agreement would give about 10,000 garbage haulers, streets workers, and other blue-collar employees a 3.5 percent raise, their first in seven years, followed by a 2.5 percent increase next year, as well as a $2,800 one-time signing bonus. In light of long-stagnant compensation and with no retroactive pay on offer, the raises are modest. But they're in keeping with the economic realities of the recession and slow recovery, especially considering that the city, unlike many other governments, made no major staff reductions in the wake of the financial collapse.

The administration won key concessions on pensions, one of the most serious threats to the city's fiscal health, with the union agreeing that employees would either increase their contributions or join a 401(k)-like plan. To resolve a dispute over furloughs, the union would allow "temporary layoffs" when required by economic conditions, an alternative to permanent layoffs that should be preferable to most workers as well as taxpayers. The union also agreed that sick time would no longer count for overtime calculations.

For its part, the city agreed to contribute more to the union's health-care fund and drop a lawsuit seeking to impose terms in the dispute.

An agreement would be a welcome reprieve from the prospect of further labor strife, which is just as poisonous to the city's bid to host a national political convention (among other efforts) as labor unrest has been to the Pennsylvania Convention Center.

Unfortunately, even if the agreement is ratified, it will expire in less than two years, a depressingly short time for a contract five years in the making. The 2016 expiration date would come six months into the next mayor's tenure, which could mean a new standoff or - given some city politicians' predilection for pandering to the unions - a return to giving workers more than Philadelphians can afford.

Mayor Nutter, whose relationship with city unions grew so bitter that members shouted down his budget address last year, noted with some understatement last week that "it wasn't always pretty." Indeed, but in an ugly way, the mayor has managed to make the city's workforce less costly and more sustainable.