Internal Comparability. There are advantages and disadvantages to becoming the last bargaining unit in Woburn to reach agreement with the City. One advantage, which the Union has stressed, is that the City’s ability to fund the firefighter agreement is easier to discern because its current budget has already factored in the cost of funding the other agreements. One disadvantage is that the other collective bargaining units have set a consistent pattern that included the 5% increase in employee contributions to health insurance benefits also awarded above and a pattern of wage increases totaling 5% over three years except in the case of the other public safety bargaining units – the police. These do not seem to support the 12% pay increase proposed by the Union. How to weigh the comparability of the Police agreements is among the most hotly contested issue in this case. The City views this as a simple 0%/1%/0% settlement along with an agreement to fund Xxxxx Xxxx benefits in order to maintain the status quo despite the Commonwealth’s decision to abandon Xxxxx Xxxx funding. From this perspective, funding the Xxxxx Xxxx does not amount to a wage improvement. It also points out that only grandfathered officers will receive Xxxxx Xxxx benefits at all. Thus, it averages Xxxxx eligible and Xxxxx non-‐eligible officers when comparing their wages to firefighter wages. In contrast, the Union views the City’s concession to fund Xxxxx Xxxx educational incentives as amounting to a 6.9% pay raise in the first year of the Agreement which, when combined with the 1% raise in year two brings the total police increase to almost 8%. The Union compares a particular firefighter profile to a particular police officer profile using an officer who is Xxxxx eligible in reaching its calculation that there is a firefighter pay lag that justifies its 4%/4%/4% proposal. It is not surprising that the issue of how to factor in the transfer of Xxxxx Xxxx funding from the Commonwealth to the cities and towns opting to assume this expense has come up in earlier JLMC cases. In the two cited by the Union, City of Haverhill and Haverhill Firefighters JLMC-‐09-‐11F, and Town of Scituate, JLMC-‐10-‐ 15F, Arbitrators Xxxx and Xxxxxx (respectively) each weighed essentially the same arguments made by the parties to this case and concluded that, … Even though…I did not feel it was appropriate to treat (Xxxxx Xxxx) costs as the equivalent of a 6.25% pay increase…The City’s willingness to commit those funds casts signif...
