Collective Bargaining "Unit?"

Did a Local Springfield News Paper Article Display an Agenda?

In the Springfield News-Leader article today, "Teachers will vote on contract," first the article reports that Springfield's public school teachers will be voting to approve or reject a contract reached through collective bargaining. The contract will solidify terms and procedures related to wage and benefit increases along with other conditions of employment.

Historically, such an article would have identified the National Education Association (NEA) and the Springfield National Education Association (SNEA) as teachers' unions, but what I observed was that the term "union" was omitted throughout the entire article and not mentioned in any of the sidebar information shared at the News-Leader site. On some occasions in the article, whenever one might have expected to see the word "union," it was replaced by the word "unit" and although the article begins announcing the contract was reached through "collective" bargaining, later, when identified, the "unit" was referred to as simply the "bargaining unit," rather than the collective bargaining unit.

These observations give rise to some questions we should ponder:

Why do you suppose the writer of the article or the editing staff of the News-Leader chose not to identify the National Education Association or the Springfield National Education Association as the unions that they are?

Did the News-Leader writer or editorial staff want to obscure the fact that these are teachers' unions because of recent controversial national union news?

Would such a seemingly careful omission of the term "union" imply whoever is responsible would like to see this action on the part of the SNEA fly under the local radar rather than command any controversial reaction?

Ask yourself those questions, and after you ask them you can judge for yourself whether there is a potential media agenda involved.  I just wanted you to think about it beyond the surface.

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What is Prompting Early Police and Firefighter Resignations?

It's the News Media

At Tuesday's City Council luncheon, City Manager Greg Burris presented a power point presentation, regarding his proposed general fund budget recommendations, to the City Council.

A full recommended budget must be presented to the City Council by May 1, 2009.

During the course of discussion, City Manager Greg Burris suggested negative publicity in "the newspaper" is driving earlier retirement resignations, among those eligible for retirement, in the police and fire departments.

"With all the negative media attention that the police/fire pension fund has been receiving," Burris said, "it's promoting that exodus because of all the uncertainty and the negativity within the community."

According to Mayor Jim O'Neal, Burris and he met with police officers and firefighters before the Council luncheon today.

Fire Chief Barry Rowell expanded on those sentiments at the luncheon meeting, after an introduction by Burris.

"The uncertainty over the future of the pension plan and the ongoing negative publicity has led to more resignations than we expected among those who have reached eligibility and are opting not to continue until their maximum age to retire," Rowell said.

O'Neal advised police and firefighters who were reaching retirement age not to be motivated out of misinformation or fear "coming from an unreliable source."

"I'd think twice about getting my advice from a newspaper editorial," O'Neal said.

The Mayor also said the police and firefighters should not be fearful that their retirement benefits are going to be cut.

Understaffing of Fire Department Addressed; Police Academy to be Reopened

The City Council were in consensus about allowing the City Manager to move forward with reopening the police training academy to train 10 officers and allowing for compensation of an additional 5 firefighters salaries in the upcoming fiscal budget.

The Police Department is currently 34 officers, or 10.4 percent, below budgeted strength and the Fire Department is expected to be 20 firefighters, or 9.4 percent, below budgeted strength by June 30.

Even with the addition of 5 firefighters to the Fire Department the City Manager is recommending the immediate start of a shut-down of one rotating fire unit.

The news release from Public Information Officer Louise Whall explained the changes this afternoon:

"The number of Springfield Fire Department vacancies expected this spring will require shutting down a unit on a rotating basis when staffing falls below certain levels effective April 27, 2009. For single-unit stations, this will mean shutting down that station for its 24-hour shift....

Burris said he plans to use additional savings from this year's budget to put about $150,000 in additional funding in the current fiscal year's Fire overtime budget. That funding is estimated to cover enough overtime to maintain at least a 48-person staffing level from mid May through June 30 in order to limit unit shutdowns to one at a time. A 48-person staffing level will require one unit to be taken out of service on a rotating basis among the City's 12 fire stations. Without the additional overtime funding, two or three units would need to be shut down on a consistent basis through June 30.

Four Fire Stations house two units, so one unit would remain in service. But when the rotation hits stations with only one unit, it will necessitate closing the station for that 24-hour shift. The Fire Department believes it is more equitable to all citizens to rotate the closure of one of the 16 units operating at all 12 stations during this period until June 30. This operational plan will be reviewed once the FY10 annual budget is approved.

When a unit shutdown requires a station closing, the information will be made public on the City's Web site, www.springfieldmo.gov, and signs will be posted at the stations with information to contact 911 or a non-emergency phone number. Each fire station has an emergency call phone located outside where walk-up visitors can call for emergency assistance.

Other procedures that will be followed when one unit is out of service and there is working fire include:

* The Department will reduce the number of vehicles sent initially to each type of call.

* The Department will not provide mutual aid to area departments.

* The Department will not respond to haz-mat or water-rescue calls outside of Springfield.

* If the Department has two working fires at once, it will limit the types of non-emergency calls it will respond to; respond only to EMS calls for cardiac or respiratory arrest; may make emergency personnel callbacks; and may request mutual-aid assistance from neighboring departments to cover in Springfield.

In addition to the operational plan, the Department is taking the following steps to address the staffing shortage:

* No overtime is being used to maintain minimum staffing levels for Haz Mat, Water Rescue or Technical Rescue. When incidents require these operations, the on-call Chief will determine emergency call-in or request mutual aid.

* Chief Officers will respond to calls during working hours and off hours to cover for Battalion Chiefs when on leave.

* All travel-related training is suspended so it does not contribute to decreased staffing levels."

The City's Web log, CityConnect, plans to make Burris' Power Point presentation available at their Web site later today.

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Mayor Carlson: No medium to get a message out to the public

Hey, we're here! ...And just like the government, we like to think we're here to help the community

We're making phone calls, we're sending email requests for information, we're searching the internet and the libraries for background information so that we can understand an issue and not look like idiots when we report on it, or at least some of us are, and many of us are doing it every day.

Juxtapose this:

"How do you get a message out to the public, to the people that you're elected to represent if you no longer have a medium to do it with?" - Mayor Tom Carlson from his State of the City Report June 5, 2008

With this:

"I’m no longer interested in relaying any corrections beyond something simple and obvious like a Council name misspelling. However, I will also point out...." Public Information Director Louise Whall, as quoted from an email sent to a contributor of this blog. View it in the comment section under: More on 1/8-cent Transportation Tax)

I struggle daily with wondering if I am wrong to point these things out, but, you know, if city officials wouldn't say things like the above, I wouldn't have anything like that TO report.

I'll tell you something, readers, when I reported on what Greene County Commissioner Roseann Bentley said in an interview I did while writing an article for Community Free Press, February 27 issue:

"To be honest with you, when I became county commissioner, I was startled to find that it is, very often three out of the five days a week, a 7:30 or 8 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. job." - Greene County Commissioner Roseann Bentley, February 27 issue, CFP.

I didn't include it in the first, second, third...numerous first drafts, and I languished over the decision to publish it because I knew the detrimental effect it could have on an upcoming election. I literally lost sleep over whether to include it or not, asking my husband, over and over, "why did she say THAT!?" In the end, how could I not report it? Don't voters have the right to know? Don't I have the responsibility to inform them? Yet, I struggle and I stress every day and continue to weigh information and try to give readers the best work I can give them.

Mayor Carlson said yesterday:

"It's not like it used to be, there's not the depth, there's not the scope, there's not the understanding on the part of the media, on the topics that they're covering."

Sure, the media can take a part of the blame for that, but most of the time, I'd wager, the media is doing all they can to get information on any given topic so they can cover something fairly and it's like pulling teeth to get the information sought, then, add the timing issue. Reporters are on a dead line.

I think reporters should take some of the blame, but just as in the case of the police/fire pension plan's underfunding, there's enough blame to go around.

I was hoping I wouldn't have anything to post at JackeHammer today...looks like it just didn't work out. - Jackie Melton

Mayor Carlson: Excerpt from the State of the City Report:

June 5, 2008

"The challenges that this community is facing in trying to get the community to support things have increased many fold.

I (will) probably not make any friends right here, but I'll tell you that our friends in the media don't support the community like they used to. I think I am qualified to say that, not only as a person that's worked as a journalist and as an editor, but also as a person that's worked in public life.

It's not like it used to be, there's not the depth, there's not the scope, there's not the understanding on the part of the media, on the topics that they're covering. On top of that, we have this internet thing that's going on now, with this blogging stuff, where people used to, if you wanted to say something, you had to put your name to it, now, there's this anonymous character assassination that is encouraged in order to sell newspapers or other media outlets. It makes it very difficult to get your message out.

People in this room can tell you questions that a person from the media will ask you about some person in this town that everybody here has known of for years and the person who's charged with covering that has never heard of them.

How do you get a message out to the public, to the people that you're elected to represent if you no longer have a medium to do it with? It's a big challenge, and how do you get, with the amount of time and effort that it takes these days to deal with these issues, to get qualified people to step up to serve? You know, the only thing I'm banking on, and I'm betting on Springfield because this town has always been a town that when you presented a challenge, rose to it...." - Mayor Carlson, from his state of the city report, June 5, 2008.

Listen to the entire podcast here or here.