Unions, council vow to fight mayor on budget

By: Tom MacDonald

Mayor Michael Nutter has presented his budget to City Council and the public. One union leader isn’t pleased with what he heard.

By: Tom MacDonald
tmacdonald@whyy.org

Mayor Michael Nutter has presented his budget to City Council and the publis. One union leader isn’t pleased with what he heard.

Transcript:
The budget includes cuts to city services, along with tax and fee increases. One of the proposals is elimination of money for city worker pay raises, which blue collar workers union head Pete Matthews says means the unions would have to come up with savings to give themselves a wage hike.

Matthews: “And if you recall 1992 when they financed everything off the backs of city workers, that’s why I’m here today and that’s not going to happen again. So obviously, he needs new discussions they have to find some things because as far as concessions we won’t be making any.”

City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski says she can’t vote for this budget in this form because increases to both sales and property taxes are too much for city residents.

Krajewski: “Oh I see big changes. There has to be.”

The next step in the process will be weeks of council hearings on virtually every item in the budget.

Listen:
Click on the play button below or right click on this link and choose “Save Link As” to download. [audio: reports20090319budget3.mp3]