By Troy Graham
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — Mayor Nutter ended one of his administration’s most contentious labor disputes Friday, agreeing to drop an appeal of the firefighters’ arbitration award and to pay back wages and benefits.
On average, the city’s firefighters each should see about $5,000 in back pay in the coming weeks, costing the city $47 million, officials said.
Nutter’s actions resolves a five-year dispute with Local 22, the union for firefighters and paramedics.
The two sides went to arbitration after the union’s last contract expired in 2009. The first award was issued in 2010 and the administration appealed to the courts, calling the award unaffordable.
The dispute was returned to arbitrators, who ruled again in 2012. The administration appealed that award as well.
The appeal had been slated to be heard in Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg on Thursday. Nutter on Friday agreed to drop that appeal, saying the improving economy means the city now can afford to pay.
The administration already had budgeted $112 million in the city’s five-year financial plan to give the firefighters their pay increases.
Last month, a Common Pleas judge ordered the administration to pay a lump sum into Local 22’s health-care fund and increase the city’s monthly contributions.
That order would cost the city $70 million over five years, Nutter said Friday, but the administration did not appeal.
That left just a $28 million back payment into the health-care fund as the only outstanding item to resolve the contract. That amount now will be paid as well.
“We made the appeal for the right reasons,” Nutter said. “We couldn’t afford it. Now we can.”
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