CCP 03-12-2001 - Laserfiche WebLink

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. " .. e . e CITY OF ARDEN HILLS MEMORANDUM DATE: March 8, 2001 TO: Mayor and City Council lr 11 JA tJ Joseph P. Lynch, City Administrator d~ '-^"<---- FROM: SUB.JECT: Labor Relations Associates/M.A.M.A. Proposal The City of Arden Hills has been approached about joining the Labor Relations Associates/M.A.M.A. pool for services from Labor Relations for union negotiations, employees concerns and issues, wage comparison, and labor advice at a fixed cost per year. Currently, we are paying Labor Relations Associates (LRA) on an hourly basis of $85.00 per hour for consultation on labor union negotiations and sometimes, for wage rate comparison and labor advice. The cost in the year 2000 for LRA was approximately $825.00. This was low due to the fact that I didn't use LRA at each meeting with the union. As part of the services, we do get telephone advice and LRA has met with the City Administrator and management on union consultation and labor negotiation consultation. The benefit, if we were to join this group, is that we are now part of a larger group of cities and we gain the advantage of obtaining information from other jurisdictions in the terms of contract settlements, wage rate direction, labor negotiations practices and trends. We will continue to receive telephone assistance without charge. They would be available for meetings, for union discussions, labor information and trends, without charge. The drawbacks, in my opinion, are that depending on timing, we may not need as much assistance from LRA during contract negotiations as we possibly did in the past. On the other hand, we may need more given the fact that we're looking at the department as a whole, and the changes that might be needed to that structure to more accurately work division, pay, roles and responsibilities. Another drawback is that, typically the information we receive for pay and benefits is dependent on the size ofthe community, the size of the bargaining unit, and the number of employees. It's not always comparing apples to apples. However, it does allow us to see what's happening in the field as far as trends for pay and benefits. Options 1) Keep current hourly basis for assistance with contract negotiations, labor negotiations, and consultation for employee issues. There isn't any way to accurately predict what the cost of this may be on an armual basis, and obviously it would be less in a non-contract negotiation year. Keep in mind that we will be renegotiating the contract in 2002 if we settle in 2001, so we will have back-to-back years where we will need assistance for contract negotiations. I expect the cost to be in the range of$I,500.00 - $2,000.00.