Chattanooga: Unions open to merger

City unions should not deter consolidation of some city and Hamilton County departments, Mayor Ron Littlefield said.

"We know these things can be dealt with," Mr. Littlefield said Friday. "It's not something that should be feared."

The city and county's 911 centers merged even though the employees had different pension plans. The solution was for existing employees to keep their own plans and for new hires to start in a different plan, he said.

"That's not an insurmountable problem," he said.

Spokesmen for some city unions said Friday they're willing to look at consolidation, although differences in pay, pension plans and representation all would need to be discussed.

In his State of the City speech Thursday, Mr. Littlefield suggested the city and county get past the "baby steps" of consolidating the treasurer and clerk offices and forge ahead on larger projects. He spoke extensively about consolidating parks and recreation, public works, police and fire services.

County Commission Chairman Curtis Adams said the county and city could look at further consolidation, but County Mayor Claude Ramsey said he wants to see how the initial efforts go.

"We'll see if we can do that," Mr. Ramsey said.

Mr. Adams said the fact that some city departments have unions could be a problem. County departments are not unionized.

Some public works and parks and recreation workers are represented by the Service Employees International Union, Local 205.

The city's police department has associations with the Fraternal Order of Police, Police Benevolent Association and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.

City firefighters are represented by Chattanooga Firefighters Association Local 820.

FOP President Toby Hewitt said the city and county also operate under different retirement plans. The county uses the Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System, while the city has its own Chattanooga Fire and Police Pension Fund, he said.

"That's a huge issue," Mr. Hewitt said.

He said police officers will want to know how much their retirement pay will be and where it will come from. Such issues don't mean his association would be against consolidation, he said, but those questions must be answered.

Doug Collier, president of SEIU Local 205, said its members would want more details about the city and county plans. He said the union already deals with some consolidated departments, such as Metropolitan Nashville.

"We'd like to be able to represent the county force," Mr. Collier said.

The president of the Chattanooga Firefighters Association said the union would want to establish ground rules for consolidation.

Capt. Jeff Eldridge said the Chattanooga department is paid and the county's is made up of volunteers.

Ground rules would include training volunteer firefighters to the same standards as city firefighters and, as the department progresses, bringing paid firefighters on to the county side, he said.

"We want to see everyone paid to do the same job," Capt. Eldridge said.