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Chardon leak was costly, but amount unknown
(by Joseph Koziol Jr. - August 27, 2009)
Chardon leak was costly, but amount unknown
By JOSEPH KOZIOL JR.
Leaks like the one being investigated in the City of Chardon have happened before and probably will happen again, according to Chardon's labor negotiator involved in the latest one.
Jeffrey Miller, who served as labor negotiator for the city on a contract for service workers, said last week that, in his 10 years in the business, he has seen these types of leaks before.
Mr. Miller is a partner in the Cleveland law firm of Johnson, Miller & Schmitz, which, he said, has a combined 60 years of experience in the field.
He said leaks are not uncommon in small towns, where officials know the employees. That friendly atmosphere can create problems for negotiating sessions which are usually kept under tight wraps, he said.
"My concern is we don't like to see any information come out," Mr. Miller said. Leaking of any information, he said, can create problems for either side.
In Chardon's case, it has been alleged that one City Council member leaked privileged information from an executive session to a service worker, who then relayed the information to a union bargainer. Some city officials have said the leaked information gave away the city's position on longevity benefits.
Union representative Mark Davis, who reportedly informed the city of the leak, did not return a call for comment.
Chardon Finance Director Jeffrey Smock said the leak of information extended negotiations, which resulted in added time and costs for Mr. Miller's services.
Mr. Smock said negotiations involve a give-and-take scenario from both sides. As an example, he said, the city may come in with a 2 percent hike in wages as its first offer, while the union may say initially it wants 6 percent. He said both sides then generally reach a compromise on that issue.
He said both sides may have a dozen negotiating points and be willing to give in on one to get a concession from the other side on another. He said, on some of those points, the city may use one issue as a carrot, dangling it in front of union negotiators, to get a concession on another issue. The issue of longevity, he said, was a carrot that the city hoped to use but lost, Mr. Smock said. "It weakened the city's position to bargain."
Mr. Miller said it is hard to quantify just how much the city spent in added fees to his firm because of the leak, but there was a definite cost.
Mr. Miller was paid $185 an hour, and at least one added meeting was caused by the leak, he said.
He said the city learned of the leaked information in its first negotiating session with the union. That, in turn, caused the city's negotiating team to have to meet a second time to discuss its strategy and modify its plan, he said. Then another round of negotiating had to occur.
"There certainly was a cost, because we had to come up with another plan as to how to proceed," Mr. Miller said. "And we probably had another negotiating session on top of it."
And the city did lose that carrot in the negotiating session, he said.
But Mr. Miller said, to say with any certainty that the remainder of negotiations, beyond the two added meetings, were affected in any way is impossible. He said it's impossible to say how negotiations would have proceeded had no information been leaked.
While the bargaining eventually went to a fact-finding session, he said, it may have gone to that extent because of the leak. He said a complaint for unfair labor practices could be filed because of the leak, but the negotiating eventually ended in the city's favor.
Mr. Miller said the city did get a favorable contract, but it was due more to the strong arguments he made during the fact-finding session than anything else.
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