Wages frozen for some city workers
Many say they haven't received pay increases in four or five years

By Zsombor Peter
Staff Writer

GALLUP — When the United Mine Workers of America finalized a new labor agreement with the City of Gallup a year ago, it guaranteed a speedy climb up the pay scale for most of the city's blue- and white-collar workers in the departments that voted the union in.

But for a number of others, as they learned last month when the first wave of raises kicked in under the new plan, it's guaranteed that they'll be seeing no raises for at least the next few years.

As City Manager Eric Honeyfield explained it, the two extremes are consequences of the city's attempt to right a former pay plan that was "way out of wack."

The way city employees were receiving raises under their last labor agreement, he said, before former Gov. Gary Johnson allowed a state law requiring the government to recognize labor unions sunset, there wasn't much of a plan at all, really. Instead of setting up an objective scale that matched a person's job and seniority to a particular salary, the agreement simply listed each employee by name and how much he or she would be making that year.

"Salaries were based on who you were," he said, instead of what the employee did and how long he or she had been at it.

It meant some city employees were earning much more than others for more-or-less the same work, said Honeyfield.

A pillar of Councilman Frank Gonzales' campaign platform was to come up with a more rational plan. When Gov. Bill Richardson revived the state's collective bargaining laws in 2003, the city had its chance.

In negotiations with the United Mine Workers, the city decided on a fair market rate for the various positions, and designed a pay plan that would bring all current employees up to those rates over the next three years.

But there was another group of city workers, a group that was already earning more than the city's new market rate.

So the question, said Honeyfield, was this: "How do you fix a pay plan without stopping the people who are over-range and bringing the people who are under-range up?"

The city's answer, it turned out, was that you don't. So the plan the city and union finally agreed on leaves out those "over-range" workers altogether, turning the market rate into a sort of cut-off above which workers get nothing, at least for now.

Each year, the city will increase the cut-off and the salaries of everyone below it by a measure of the going inflation rate, a cost of living adjustment essentially. Eventually, the rising cut-off should catch up with everyone, at which point the city workers whose salaries are now frozen should start raises again.

"We hope to have most of them caught up in three or four years," said Assistant City Manager Larry Binkley.

Robert Butero, Region Four manager for the United Mine Workers, sounded reconciled about the deal, which he signed off on last February.

"We try doing the best we can for every individual," he said, "but sometimes there are compromises and you can't always get to accomplish that."

Freezing some workers' wages for the next three or four years is one thing, but some city employees, who asked to remain anonymous, say it's already been several years since they last saw any sort of raise, be it the next step in a pay plan or a cost of living adjustment.

"Those assertions are just flat false," said Honeyfield on the basis of some circumstantial evidence.

And as for those employees who've already topped the pay scale and have learned to live at the edge of their means on those wages, he's not too concerned, pointing out the many other benefits of holding a city job, from a 60 percent break on health insurance premiums to holidays to a retirement plan that pays out 75 percent of an employee's wages after 25 years.

All in all, said Honeyfield, "it's a slick deal."

But it's not enough to make everyone thrilled about the pay freeze.

One city employee facing that freeze says it's been four years since he's seen any growth in his paycheck. And earning less than $11 an hour after more than a dozen years with the city, he doesn't think he's living large, either.

His pay may be standing still, he pointed out, but prices certainly aren't.

"They raised up our water rates, they raised our electricity rates; last year my property tax increased by $70," he said, "and it's just getting harder and harder to make ends meet."

Together with his wife, he said, the family earns $34,000 a year, and his college-bound son was turned down for financial aid because they earned too much.

And he's probably not the only one it that situation.

Butero said there are some 170 city employees tied to the pay plan his union negotiated with the city. But there are more than 400 city workers below upper management tied to some sort of pay plan or another, of which as much as 25 percent is now considered over-paid, according to Binkley, which means there may be more than 100 who won't be seeing raises any time soon.