DETROIT — Mayor Dave Bing’s relationship with the leaders of the city’s most powerful union seems like it’s getting more conflict-ridden day after day.

Wayne County Judge Amy Hathaway listens to AFSCME attorney Herbert Sanders, left, and city attorney Valerie Colbert-Osamuede. (Photo by David Alire Garcia/Michigan Messenger)

Wayne County Judge Amy Hathaway listens to AFSCME attorney Herbert Sanders, left, and city attorney Valerie Colbert-Osamuede. (Photo by David Alire Garcia/Michigan Messenger)

Bing is accused by leaders of AFSCME Council 25 of impeding real give-and-take negotiations over a future contract, negotiations that are at a formal — if not metaphysical — impasse. On top of that, this past week the Bing administration terminated scores of AFSCME’s current city employee contracts.

That, in turn, led to a Wednesday afternoon courtroom standoff between lawyers for the mayor, who’s up for re-election next week, and the city’s largest public employees union, whose 3,500 members find themselves at the center of the debate over Detroit’s ballooning $300 million budget deficit.

In the 16th floor courtroom of Wayne County Judge Amy Hathaway, AFSCME lawyer Herbert Sanders petitioned the court to put a stop to what he argued was an unlawful termination of the union contracts. “The code indicates that the contracts and amendments must be approved by city council,” Sanders said, emphasizing that the mayor unilaterally terminated 16 of the city’s 51 contracts.

“In the letter of termination, they indicate they are terminating the dues check off,” Sanders said, referring to union dues collection. “They also, since that time, have begun to change working hours and conditions of employment.”

“They already did that?” Hathaway asked.

Sanders went on to cite an instance of a Detroit Water and Sewerage Department memo in which employees were notified that they will receive comp time instead of overtime pay, which Sanders said amounts to a violation of the contract.

Judge Hathaway: “And these are union members?

Sanders: “That is correct, your honor. So there’s already an effort underway to select from the buffet of the contract those things that [the Bing administration] finds palatable.”

This latest Bing-AFSCME conflict hinges on whether or not the city charter requires the city council to approve the amendments to collective bargaining agreements the mayor seeks. On that question, Judge Hathaway ordered the lawyers back to her court next week to make their best argument.

But part of the buffet the Bing administration clearly didn’t like was withholding union dues from employee pay checks, and delivering those dues to AFSCME’s bank account.

Was that decision — the only real consequence of the terminated contracts so far — punishment for AFSCME Council 25’s unwillingness to accept the mayor’s demand of new contract terms, including unpaid furlough days amounting to a 10 percent pay cut as well as additional benefit reductions?

In an interview with Michigan Messenger earlier this week, AFSCME chief negotiator Cathy Phillips emphasized what she sees as the difference between what the mayor says publicly, and what the city’s contract negotiators say behind closed doors at the negotiating table.

“He has told the media, ‘If they give us the 10 percent cut we’ll stop laying [employees] off,’” Phillips said of Bing. “That is not their table position!”

What’s the point of the discrepancy?

“To get you against us,” Phillips snapped. “To get the public against us.”

After the court hearing, AFSCME Council 25 President Al Garrett, expressed optimism that the judge would ultimately rule in AFSCME’s favor, undo the termination of the 16 union contracts with the city, and resume union dues withholding. Asked if the lawsuit might make the mediation over new contract negotiations more complicated, Garrett demurred.

AFSCME signs“Nah,” he shrugged. “Keep in mind the lawsuit is about the expired contract, the negotiations are about a successor to it. And so while they’re connected, they’re two separate issues.”

But even AFSCME acknowledges that the mayor does have a trump card he can play at the end of the ongoing mediation process: imposing the city’s “last, best offer.”

Phillips explained the process:

“After the fact finder renders their position, there’s a 60-day cooling-off period. The parties can come back together at the [bargaining] table based on the fact finders opinion. We can, but we don’t have to,” she said. “But at the end of the 60 days, definitely the city is going to impose their last, best offer.”

Phillips doesn’t expect that to happen until December at the earliest.

From the mayor’s perspective, that scenario could be avoided if AFSCME Council 25 simply cut the same deal as 17 other smaller, local city unions.

But on that point, AFSCME’s Phillips points out that so-called “me too” clauses in those 17 completed contracts would automatically substitute a more favorable AFSCME-negotiated deal for the one they’ve already reached with the city.

“The other unions were skillful in saying, ‘We’re tired of fighting this fight, AFSCME is bigger, AFSCME’s got more money, let them fight for us,’” Phillips said.

Meanwhile, the mayor’s own appointees as well as the city’s non-union employees have had to swallow the equivalent of 10-percent pay cuts. Still, Bing warns that city workforce continues to face the prospect of even more layoffs on top of the 436 pink slips already issued.

That’s something Phillips wants to avoid. But she also wants to send the city’s top administrators a message: “We’re just trying to make them understand that they’re not bargaining.”