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Consultant’s bill for harmonious labor negotiations: $300,000 and rising
November 2nd, 2009, 5:00 am · 23 Comments · posted by Teri Sforza, Register staff writer
The kinder, gentler and much-ballyhooed “interest-based bargaining” process - which produced a controversial labor contract that was withdrawn earlier this month and sent back to the drawing board - will cost the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California more than $300,000 in consultant costs before it’s all done.
Met hired consultant Agreement Dynamics in February 2008 to help keep the peace as it plunged back into labor negotiations with its employee unions, which have proved quite contentious in the past (and, judging by how some employees reacted on Oct. 13, may well prove quite contentious again).
The consultant’s original contract was not to exceed $200,000 and was amended several times, now extending to February 2010 (see contract: agrdynamics).
Agreement Dynamic’s billings through July were $282,093 (see met-billings-to-date), with many thousands of dollars sure to come.
The use of a consultant to help smooth labor negotiations is certainly not unprecedented. However, the much larger County of Orange, which has some 18,000 employees (compared to Met’s 2,000) and some contentious labor history as well, generally negotiates union contracts in-house, officials said.
Met’s attempts at harmonious negotiation don’t come cheap:
- Agreement Dynamics’ head honcho, Rhonda Hilyer, charges $2,500 per day for her services. If you’ve only got a half-day’s worth of consulting for her to do, the charge is $1,500; and if it’s less than that, she bills $250 per hour (and ”less than an hour’s work will be billed at a prorated amount based on 15-minute increments,” the contract says.)
- The No. 2 guy, Glenn Lowrey, gets $2,000 a day; $1,000 a half-day; and $200 an hour, while
- The No. 3 guy, Daniel Villao, gets $1,500 a day, $800 a half-day, and $150 an hour.
Interest-based bargaining, for the record, “is a negotiation strategy in which parties collaborate to find a ‘win-win’ solution to their dispute,” one HR expert writes. “This strategy focuses on developing mutually beneficial agreements based on the interests of the disputants. Interests include the needs, desires, concerns, and fears important to each side.”
Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and men and all.
The tentative contract that Agreement Dynamics helped hammer out would have boosted Met employees’ pay up to 23 percent over five years, and would have boosted pensions 25 percent forever.
The people who would have benefited the most from the pension hike were senior managers - the very people charged with negotiating the agreements and recommending them to Met’s board for approval.
There was quite a bit of public outrage, and the agreement was withdrawn at the last minute, when it appeared certain that the board would reject it.
Now everyone is supposed to head back to the negotiating table to work their way around the contentious pension issue. It looks as if Met hopes to have something on the table by February, since that’s when Agreement Dynamics’ contract is now set to expire.
According to Hilyer’s profile on spoke.com, “Her spellbinding speeches and trainings on understanding and converting conflict, on negotiation and agreement, and on the essential elements needed to implement successful change processes are very powerful and give new insights into solving difficult problems.”
That should come in handy right about now.
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I don’t understand what service this consultancy provided that the average HR department couldn’t achieve on its own. The summary of the services the consultancy provided are no different from what the average person can learn from a “how to negotiate” book or a college class on negotiations/conflict resolution.
Also, perhaps the better question is why the consultancy was even paid at all? It seems like they worked on a contract that didn’t get approved. That would be like paying a contractor before the work passes city inspection.
•Agreement Dynamics’ head honcho, Rhonda Hilyer, charges $2,500 per day for her services. If you’ve only got a half-day’s worth of consulting for her to do, the charge is $1,500; and if it’s less than that, she bills $250 per hour (and ”less than an hour’s work will be billed at a prorated amount based on 15-minute increments,” the contract says.)
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I’ll do it for $100 a day plus free meals.
“Interest-based bargaining, for the record, “is a negotiation strategy in which parties collaborate to find a ‘win-win’ solution to their dispute,” one HR expert writes”
Rhonda, Glenn, and Daniel’s fees - I’d say this was a win - win - win situation. I wonder if they get a bonus for adding on one more win.
Wrong ! The contract was approved. by a majority of the employees. You folks still don’t get it. You continue to play into the hands of those who don’t want change. This deal represented “ground breaking” change.
Employees won’t retire if they can’t afford to. Now the district will have to do what other public agencies do and offer a financial incentive to get people to retire.
Believe it or not, you Teri, are pandering to the worst in people. Your parents must be proud?
Don says:
The contract was approved. by a majority of the employees. You folks still don’t get it. You continue to play into the hands of those who don’t want change. This deal represented “ground breaking” change.
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Don, you’re fired.
Seriously, if you’re not happy please quit, go out into the real world and see how mcuh your GED pays.
Why the two tier system then? You want the new employees to have to work forever and not retire?
Don, I can’t believe the two tier system if the kind of change needed. New employees shouldn’t get less consideration than older ones in a public agency.
‘Your parents must be proud?’ - that is an oddly framed question. It reads more like a statement. At any rate, Teri is a reporter and I can’t see where she is making things up.
Respectfully to Don:
The change MWD customers want is LOWER rates for water.
About two weeks ago, the MWD tried to raise rates on customers by an obscene amount!!
What part of the original contract “not to exceed $200,000″ does the MWD not understand? If the MWD is going to spend $200,000 of taxpayer money on consulting, it should come with results!
You just don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what a majority of the employees at MWD approved. The public wsn’t buying what was being sold.
Next, MWD doesn’t HAVE to offer financial incentives. Where do you get this? They did in my agency to avoid layoffs, and at that, they went back to the employee to chip in more for it. In my opibnion, the “buy out” was wrong. They should have implemented a layoff.
Get a clue. The rate payers don’t want to pay for enhanced anything when they are paying more for everything, including water.
If the employees at MWD cant’ afford to retire on what they have, if they are 55 or thereabouts and they have years of service, then they’ve been doing something wrong. If they don’t have years of service, then they came to the table late. But the fact is that tthe private sector has only a fraction of what public retirement systems offer at your formula. This is causing the reaction that you are getting. Your attitude is making all public sector workers look bad.
Wake up!
I agree with JB. If you don’t like it quit! Try finding a job closely remote to the perks and benefits you receive!
Teri, keep up the good work. Don, go home and sit down and be quiet. There are ways to fix this problem - it is called reorganization with very small packages to get rid of high paid employees. Corporations do it all the time.
I just wonder whose friend Rhonda is because this company was hired because of… fill in the blank - who knows who? This is always the way the water districts work. Teri should look at the board minutes to see who suggested this company.
And, what do they have an HR department for. Or are these people also not college educated? I wonder what credentials they have.
Again, keep up the good work Teri!!
Fire them all!
“The use of a consultant to help smooth labor negotiations is certainly not unprecedented. However, the much larger County of Orange, which has some 18,000 employees (compared to Met’s 2,000) and some contentious labor history as well, generally negotiates union contracts in-house, officials said”
I recall during the last time the county negotiated a labor contract with the sheriff’s department the deputies conducted a work slow-down in the jails clogging up our court system for about a week. So who needs a consultant when a public agency is allowed to curtail essential services and defy the law to get what they want without recourse???
those much hated “double dippers” are often called consultants when rehired by public agencies.
consultants are not satisfied with one-and-done jobs. they want open ended jobs that continue to pay for years. this is related to another interesting thing about consultants: they quite often have ambitions in addition to, and yet related to, the agencies they consult. Think Laer Pearcce, Adam Probolsky, et. al. These guys have figured out that the best way to support their political aims is to hire themselves on as consultants to local governments and special districts. In this way, they can use your tax dollars to promote their positions while directly influencing policy. It is very clever, and also disgusting.
If your local government or water district cant figure out how to do their jobs without the handholding of politicians disguised as consultants they need replacing.
You bet…this is exactly what these double dipping self serving “consultants” do.
Check out the John Wayne Airport consultant’s and the City of Newport Beach…these guy’s retire and then get REHIRED 4 DAYS LATER.
It’s such B.S.
Once again Terri Sforza is mis-representing the truth and the facts. For a “reporter”, she should get more familiar with a dictionary. She writes: The tentative contract that Agreement Dynamics helped hammer out would have boosted Met employees’ pay up to 23 percent over five years, and would have boosted pensions 25 percent forever.
However, the facts are that it “COULD” have resulted in a pay increase up to 23 % as this was completely tied to the Consumer Price Index and only if the inflation rate was 7% or above would the COLA have resulted in anywhere near what the talking head predicted.
Further, for the majority of employees at MWD, the actual pension increase would have been at a boring .09%. Nothing much to crow about there.
Yes, there are a few hypothetical folks who would have reached the age of 55 and been eligible to retire with an increase approaching the 25% you have been hearing Ms. Chicken Little crowing about…
But, hey she let it be known from the start that she did not care about the facts, so why should she be concerned with reporting the truth now.
Fact Checker….ouch, thats gonna leave a mark.
I find it difficult to believe they could not find one person to represent HR and one person to represent the employees who have good enough communication skills to negotiate a contract, or, at the very least, mediate the negotiation. *sigh*
That’s it, spend MORE of OUR money on this kind of nonsense…..
Good Going Guys!!!!
I don’t care how highly recommended, experienced, or whatever other credentials they may posess, no “consultant” is worth the grossly excessive amouts shelled out here by the taxpayers. I have no doubt there are others who can perform the same or probably better job for much less. Whatever happened to competetive bidding for public sector jobs and services? What bureaucrat was asleep at the oversight switch on this?
…but the people who actually do the work are considered worthless.
What’s really sad, is the labor unions agreeing to this crap.
Maybe they would have had better negotiations if they’d just taken that $300k and split it among their 2000 employees.