With barely a month to go before Mayor Mark Begich leaves town to become Alaska's new U.S. senator, labor contracts with about half the unions representing city employees are up for approval by the Anchorage Assembly.

Together with three other contracts approved this year, passage of the four contracts this month would extend Begich's influence over the city's relationship with most of its workers -- their pay, benefits and work rules -- for five years after he leaves office.

Two contracts -- with the city's largest union, the Anchorage Municipal Employees Association, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers -- are scheduled for public hearings and action Tuesday night. Contracts with unions for Anchorage police and firefighters will be introduced next week and scheduled for public hearings Dec. 16. The cops and firefighters are getting their contracts done early; their existing agreements don't expire until next year.

The Assembly approved another labor contract Oct. 14, and City Manager Mike Abbott says two other labor pacts were approved earlier in the year. Only one bargaining group, represented by the plumbers and pipefitters union, did not come up for negotiation this year, Abbott said.

All the contracts headed to the Assembly this month are five-year agreements, with fixed increases in the earlier years and scheduled increases in later years tied to changes in the inflation rate. Either side has the option of asking to renegotiate wage rates in the later years of the agreements.

Under the IBEW contract, for example, employees would get a 3 percent wage increase next year, then annual inflation increases ranging from a minimum 2.5 percent to 3.9 percent in 2010-2013. The option to renegotiate wages would kick in during 2010.

The added cost to the city would be $1.02 million next year to $4.4 million in 2013 under the minimum 2.5 percent annual increase. If inflation is higher and the maximum 3.9 percent annual jump takes over, the additional cost to the city could be as high as $5.8 million in 2013.

SHIFTING TO LONG CONTRACTS

Begich listed the four union contracts among the reasons he is delaying his resignation as mayor until the first of the year. He will be sworn in as a senator in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, and must step down before then. The Assembly's chair will take over as interim mayor until the next elected mayor is sworn in on July 1.

In an interview last week, Begich said he wanted to shift city employees into longer-term contracts when he took office in July 2003.

"When I came into office, these (contracts) were one-year, two-year, three-year maximums," he said. At the same time, Begich and the Assembly were looking at a $30 million budget deficit, and the mayor said he asked unions to re-open some existing contracts to help close that gap.

"I required them to open up because I wanted everyone to give a zero, a freeze the first year, so we could solve the budget deficit," he said.

Begich said he also wanted longer contracts, and those first five-year deals expired within the last year and were ripe for renegotiation.

The mayor added that the newly negotiated contracts continue his efforts to trim the city's medical coverage costs.

"We've saved a ton of money," he said. "Next year alone, our rate increases on medical coverage will be zero ... because of the work we've done over the last three years, (including the) self-insurance pool that we re-created. Most unions are now into one plan rather than eight or nine plans."

And the contracts were negotiated under guidelines set by the Assembly in early 2007, including a direction to tie wages to the inflation rate.

IS FIVE YEARS TOO LONG?

Assemblyman Bill Starr, a frequent critic of Begich's financial strategies, questioned the timing of three of the last four contracts.

The last AMEA contract expired in 2007. "That contract has been in the works for some time," Starr said. "But these other ones that are being sort of force-fed to us, if you will -- it's a hurry-up affair. And I don't appreciate it."

The five-year terms of the contracts also bother Starr. "The flexibility to change them is kind of given away," he said, which could be problematic if stresses on the national and global economies start to become more of a problem in Alaska and city revenue is squeezed.

Starr said the Assembly early this year sent a five-year prospective contract with employees represented by Teamsters Local 959 back to be revised.

That, however, was before the current Assembly majority took over after the April 2008 election. The current six-member majority tends to support Begich proposals; his administration's last budget passed 6-5 last week.

Abbott said any concerns about wage terms in a shrinking economy can be revisited in the later years of the contracts.

"The key terms of this that would have an economic impact are negotiable in those out years," he said. "Whoever the next mayor is will be in a position to deal with those reopeners in 2010, 11, 12 ...

"And if they're unsatisfied with the relationships that exist with the city's unions at that time, or the city's finances, or if they just decide they want to reopen the contracts, they're essentially able to do so."

UP FOR NEGOTIATION: Details on the four Anchorage union contracts on the Assembly's agenda.

ON TUESDAY

• Anchorage Municipal Employees Association, 625 employees. The proposed contract would replace one that expired in December 2007. It calls for a 3 percent wage increase for 2008, a 2.7 percent increase in 2009 and annual increases tied to inflation ranging from a minimum 2.5 percent to a maximum 3.9 percent in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Either side can reopen the wage talks starting in 2010.

• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 246 workers. The proposed contract would replace one that expired on Oct. 1. It calls for a 3 percent wage increase in 2009 and the 2.5 percent to 3.9 percent inflation increase annually from 2010 through 2013. Either side can reopen the wage talks starting in 2010.

ON DEC. 16

• Anchorage Police Department Employees Association, 516 employees. The proposed contract would replace one that expires next year. It calls for a 3 percent wage increase in 2009 and annual increases tied to inflation ranging from a minimum 2.9 percent and a maximum 4.5 percent from 2010 through 2013.

• International Association of Fire Fighters, 375 employees. The proposed contract would replace one that expires next year. It calls for a 3 percent wage increase in 2009 and annual increases tied to inflation ranging from a minimum 2.9 percent to a maximum 4.5 percent from 2010 through 2013. Contracts up for Assembly action

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