Tentative pact set with large city union

Boston officials say they have reached a tentative agreement with the main city bargaining unit of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, giving a boost to Mayor Thomas M. Menino's efforts to avoid labor troubles at this summer's Democratic National Convention.

According to union leaders involved in bargaining, Menino has agreed to a change in the city's residency requirement that would allow about 1,000 additional AFSCME members to live outside Boston. That would be the first time in his 10-plus years as mayor that Menino is loosening the residency requirement for city workers, and the concession will probably be used as a benchmark in talks with other unions.

The agreement calls for raises of roughly 10 percent over four years for the 1,500 AFSCME members covered by the contract. The bargaining unit includes city engineers and employees of the parks, public works, transportation, and inspectional services departments.

In financial terms, the agreement falls between the contracts signed earlier this year with the Boston Teachers Union and the Salaried Employees of North America, according to the union officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. SENA members, middle managers in city agencies, will receive 7 percent raises over three years, and the teachers are set to receive about 9.5 percent more in base pay over three years.

Menino and his aides said the city would not comment on the contract's terms until rank-and-file members have a chance to vote on the pact, probably later this month. But the mayor said the fact that a tentative pact has been reached shows that the city is making progress in the difficult chore of settling contracts with its unions.

"We now have more than 50 percent of our work force under contracts or tentative agreements," Menino said. "If a union's willing to sit at the table, we're able to get agreements on contracts."

Peter Wright, a spokesman for AFSCME Council 93, said that the two sides have reached final agreement on the pact's outlines, but that they are still working out minor details. He said the deal probably would not be signed until next week.

"We have a couple of language issues that we really need to work out," Wright said.

The settlement with AFSCME would still leave 29 of the city's 32 collective bargaining units without contracts. But it would mean that more than 9,000 of the city's roughly 16,000 workers have deals in place, and labor leaders say that a deal with AFSCME, among the most politically active city unions, could help push along negotiations with other unions.

"We're counting on the AFSCME settlement to break the logjam," said Richard M. Rogers, executive secretary treasurer of the Greater Boston Labor Council, an umbrella group that includes Boston's public-employee unions. "If the Menino administration rolls up its sleeves, we are optimistic that all city unions will be able to settle in short order."

Agreements with two other AFSCME bargaining units, representing about 500 workers in the library system and food services at schools, could follow close on the heels of this pact, labor and city officials said.

Menino is anxious to settle city contracts before the Democratic convention is held July 26-29. Several unions, led by the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association, are threatening to protest outside the FleetCenter, where the convention is being held, if they do not have deals in place, in what could be a major embarrassment to Menino and national Democrats.

The pace of contract talks is also having an impact on Menino's fund-raising efforts for the convention. The convention host committee is $4.6 million short of fulfilling its fund-raising commitment to the Democratic National Convention Committee, and several local and national unions are refusing to contribute cash while Boston workers lack contracts.

AFSCME members have been working without a contract since July 2002, and their four-year deal would be back-dated to begin then with retroactive pay and run through June 2006. Union officials declined to specify how much salaries would be raised in the individual years of the contract, but said that the total raises would work out to about 10 percent over the life of the pact.

Union leaders said they fought hard to get the mayor to relent on the residency requirement. They have argued that a higher percentage of AFSCME members are required to live in Boston than members of other unions, even though they are among the city's lowest-paid workers, earning an average of about $32,000 a year. Currently, while less than 30 percent of the city work force is required to live in Boston, about 90 percent of AFSCME members are bound by that requirement.

Since becoming mayor in 1993, Menino has consistently supported the notion of city workers being required to live in Boston. But as part of the AFSCME deal, he is agreeing to exempt all workers hired before July 1, 1990; currently, the cutoff year is 1981.

If all AFSCME bargaining units win a similar concession, only 40 percent of the union's workers would still be covered by the residency requirement, according to union figures. A shift on residency with AFSCME would automatically trigger the same change for SENA, because that union's contract includes a provision that gives it any residency-requirement exemptions negotiated by other unions.

Samuel R. Tyler, president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, said the outlines of the contract appear to be favorable to the union, particularly with regard to the residency requirement. He said he would scrutinize the final deal to see what concessions the city won in return.

"That's what they're giving up, but what are they getting?" Tyler said. "The whole picture needs to be looked at, to get a full flavor."

Rick Klein can be reached at rklein@globe.com.