The Centralia City Council chambers had standing room only Tuesday night as city employees spilled out into city hall’s entryway in a show of support for the Teamsters union in its collective bargaining pursuits with the city.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Rob DeRosa, senior business agent for Teamsters Local 252, expressed frustration with the city’s contract-negotiating tactics on behalf of its streets and parks employees. Teamsters Local 252 represents Centralia and other municipalities in a region of five counties.
“Your staff, your employees, are frustrated. We are frustrated because we came in good faith to negotiate a contract. It expired Dec. 31. And we have not gotten the same from the city,” DeRosa said. “I just want to make sure that the council knows what’s going on.”
He said that in his 22 years of negotiating, the ongoing bargaining with the City of Centralia “is probably one of the most difficult ones because I don’t think it’s negotiating.”
Whenever he presents the union’s contract proposals, DeRosa said, he is met with the city negotiator’s insistence that the city council will have to approve the union’s request, before ultimately coming back to the table with no agreement, all based on the city’s expression of financial difficulties.
“And it’s been like that for the last three or four sessions,” DeRosa said.
“Our Local represents many municipalities in Mason County, Grays Harbor County, Pacific County, Thurston County, and Lewis County. And I can say, bar-none, that we’ve been able to achieve increases in all of them. … And Centralia is the only one that I’ve come to a roadblock (with),” DeRosa said.
He said the streets and parks employees who had gathered behind him “are an asset to the city and to the citizens,” claiming that every one of them feels like they have not been listened to.
DeRosa’s ultimate request was that there be a decision-maker at the table in future negotiation sessions.
“That’s why I’m here,” DeRosa said. “I’m frustrated and I feel like I’m at a roadblock.”
In addition to the streets and parks employees gathered in the council chambers, a number of clerical employees had also amassed. Their spokesperson was Chehalis resident Shandi Cardin.
“I have the honor to represent both clerical groups that are open, currently,” Cardin said. “They stand behind us together feeling the same way, that we would also like to be done with the surface bargaining and move on — have somebody at the table that has decision-making abilities. My clerical groups are essential to the functioning of the day-to-day operations. And as such, they are essential to not only you guys but to the citizens of Centralia. And I would just ask that they be treated as such.”
In a statement to The Chronicle, Mayor Kelly Smith Johnston addressed the situation, giving the city’s stance on the matter.
“The city has faced significant financial challenges in the past two years,” Smith Johnston wrote. “As a government during the pandemic, we’ve had increased costs and substantial reductions in revenue. We have very responsible fiscal policies in order to ensure we can always provide our core services — our responsibility as a local government is to keep city services operating for the people.”
She wrote that one of the city’s fiscal policies is that it does not use one-time revenue to pay for ongoing expenses such as salaries, saying that the city has met with the Teamsters “in good faith” to try and reach a satisfactory agreement while still being fiscally responsible.
“As elected city councilors, we take our role as stewards of public funds very seriously,” she noted. “The revenues used to pay our employees are generated through the community. Our community has been struggling. People have lost their livelihoods permanently or for a long period of time, lost wage earners in their households and experienced other hardships. People have suffered. Now we’re experiencing rising inflation. We need additional revenue to pay higher salaries.”
She continued by indicating that revenues affected by the pandemic haven’t recovered yet and until those revenues recover, the city “can’t responsibly assume additional expenses.”
“We simply can’t ask our community to do more than they already have,” she wrote.
She added that because of the city’s “strong fiscal policies” none of its employees lost their jobs or saw a decrease in wages due to the pandemic.
“We are asking our employees to help us get through this storm, keeping in mind the difficulties our citizens are experiencing,” Smith Johnston wrote.