The Montgomery County Council voted Tuesday to create a two-tiered disability program for its employees based on the severity of each worker’s injury. The bill, which passed 7-1, creates a system that distinguishes between employees with a “partial incapacity” and a “total incapacity” — “between a bad back and paralysis,” said Councilman Phil Andrews, D-Gaithersburg/Rockville, one of the bill’s sponsors. The new policy is expected to save the county $2.7 million a year.
Only Councilman George Leventhal, D-at large, voted against the bill. Councilman Marc Elrich, D-at large, abstained.
While approving the measure, some council members criticized Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett for failing to reach an agreement on disability pay with union officials and said that the collective bargaining process in the county is failing.
The council asked Leggett in November 2008 to discuss disability pension with the employee unions at the bargaining table, said Councilwoman Nancy Floreen, D-at large.
“It is not for the lack of asking, or not for the lack of deference to the process, that the council is in a position of taking action here today,” she said.
Councilman Craig Rice, D-Germantown, said the council seemed to be acting out of frustration.
“I look at this bill as a message to our county executive, and I want to make sure he understands that this bill is not designed to make your job easier,” he said.
But Leggett’s spokesman, Patrick Lacefield, said the situation was beyond the county executive’s control. The union would not agree to any proposed benefit packages, so it was necessary for the council to legislate changes.
The county couldn’t afford to make concessions because it was looking to cut spending, Andrews said. Without some sort of give-and-take between both the county and the unions, the unions had no incentive to make an agreement.
Fraternal Order of Police President Marc Zifcak and Municipal and County Government Employees Organization President Gino Renne did not respond to requests for comment.
The general consensus among council members was that collective bargaining failed.
“The bargaining process in this county has become completely nonfunctional,” said Councilman Hans Riemer, D-at large, adding that legislating changes that should have been achieved through a bargaining process is “not sustainable.”
Elrich warned that such moves would worsen the already high level of tensions between the county government and the unions.
“We’re really in a difficult situation with labor relations in general,” he said, mentioning the Fraternal Order of Police’s recent threats to sue the county. “I have real concerns about whether, at the end of the day, we’ve got a collective bargaining process that really isn’t a true bargaining process.”
