City Employees Get Bigger Raise

Employees of the City of Atlanta fought for, and won from the City Council on Monday, an increase in the initial two percent pay raise that Mayor Shirley Franklin had proposed for them in the City's new, $645 million budget that takes effect July 1.

Council members voted for a higher raise of 2.6 percent for city employees beginning July 1, and voted to increase the raise again by a percentage point, to 3.6 percent, in January. Firefighters and Police Officers will be getting raises of 5.5 percent beginning July 1.

The Council then approved the overall, $645 million budget.

"It shows some good faith on the part of the City Council," said Marcus Guthrie of the public employees' union AFSCME Local 1644 immediately after the vote. "As it stands right now, we haven't had a raise in six years. So this is a step in the right direction."

The city employees were vocal and persistent, and lobbied council members hard over the past few weeks.

Monday afternoon, as the Council prepared to begin debate on the pay raises and the budget, dozens of city workers -- members of AFSCME -- marched and chanted outside the council chambers, demonstrating on behalf of more than two thousand city workers.

They considered the Mayor's initial, proposed pay raise of two percent to be an insult.

They chanted, "Two Percent Won't Pay The Rent" and "They Say Cut Back, We Say Fight Back," and opened one of the doors to the city council chambers to make sure council members heard their demonstration.

"We should not have to come here and beg for a raise. We deserve a raise," said one city employee, Fletcher Glass.

The employees marched in and around City Hall, representing those who work in such departments as sanitation, code enforcement, waste water treatment corrections and aviation. They complained they have not received anything but small, cost-of-living raises every year for the past six years, while the City has focused on raising the salaries of police and firefighters every year.

And they said their jobs are just as important to public safety as the jobs that police and firefighters do..

"No one wants to smell sewers' odor," Glass said. "They [public works employees] are just as important as keeping a criminal off my back, they're just as important as keeping my house from burning down."

"When streets fall in, I'm the first one on the scene to get the job done," said another employee, Andre Hunt.

"All it takes is a million more dollars and they could give people a 4.6% raise," said Nancy Lenk, of AFSCME Local 1644, prior to the vote. "A million dollars in the City of Atlanta is chump change. It's pocket change. And so it's there" in the budget, she said.

Council Member Ivory Lee Young and others convinced the full council to go along with a plan to raise employees' pay 2.6 percent on July 1, and 3.6 percent in January, which he said would cost the city just over $900,000 in additional funds, when benefits are included in the calculations.

"We absolutely depend on these rank and file employees to get the job done," Young told 11Alive News after the vote. "And I feel very strongly that it was very important that we get the additional one percentage point increase. And the Council voted to approve that."

The budget now goes to Mayor Franklin for her approval or veto.