The current collective bargaining agreement between UAPD and the City runs from July 1, 2012 through June 30, 2015. In spite of the contract being closed, two important changes have just been negotiated.
The UAPD contract has a “re-opener” clause concerning recruitment and retention. This clause dictates that if there’s a demonstrable recruitment/retention problem, the Union can bring the City to the bargaining table. UAPD easily demonstrated DPH’s inability to recruit enough COPC primary care physicians back in December. At the Union’s urging, DPH began recruiting new hires at Step 5. And after negotiations since that time, an agreement was finally reached that all 2230s currently at lower Steps will be advanced to Step 5 (and keep their existing seniority dates) effective July 1.
In 2012, Dentists, AME’s, and Veterinarians were not working under the same extreme salary inequities as physician-specialists. Consequently, raises for these three classifications in 2013 and 2014 were the same as those agreed for the majority of other City employees. However, with UAPD’s three year contract term benefiting physicians and extending beyond the current fiscal year, a way had to be found to secure an additional raise for these doctors before July 2015.
Knowing that the City’s engineering union would be the first to negotiate raises in fiscal year 2014-2015, the UAPD bargaining team made a strategic decision to link 2210s, 2598s, and 2292s to any raises negotiated by the City engineers. It was announced last week that those employees negotiated a 3% increase effective October 1, 2014. Once ratified by their membership, when added to the two previous raises this year (effected January 4 and March 29), these three classifications will end with a 5% total salary increase for 2014.