Labor-Management Cooperation—City of Portland, Maine

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-91
Author(s):  
Patricia Peightal ◽  
Dana Souza ◽  
Bill Bray ◽  
John Rague ◽  
Jim Pritchard ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Full Range ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
City Council ◽  
Department Head ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Labor Management ◽  
Cross Training ◽  
Union Leaders ◽  
Fiscal Pressure ◽  
The City

Portland, Maine had a traditional bargaining relationship. It now has one of the most complete programs of service-focused labor management cooperation of any place in the country. A broad range of city services, including an emerging effort in public safety are now run this way, with workers and their union leaders, managers and elected officials all benefitting from and praising the new relationship. Portland made this radical transformation without a crisis of fiscal pressure. New leadership in the city manager's office and responsive leadership in key bargaining units led to an experiment on the building of Hadlock Field. A partnership between the department head and the president of the AFSCME local led the project. Instead of contracting out to meet a short deadline and employ skills that didn't seem to exist, the parties worked out a special set of arrangements and via cross-training, teamwork and dedication completed the stadium in seven months, millions under the expected budget. From the pride and satisfaction of this joint effort, Portland, AFSCME and other key units worked to create a new participative relationship across the full range of city services. The effort has produced major cost savings and service improvements, has strengthened both the management and the union and has produced a far less adversarial bargaining relationship. In one innovation, separate services were split up and reorganized into district teams, providing customer-oriented public works services in areas that match city council districts. Cross training and new responsibilities have resulted in new opportunities and pay raises, yet have saved time and money. The piece, co-authored by union and management leaders from Portland, illustrates the breadth and depth of what they have achieved without a crisis as the initiating factor.

Employee Involvement in Seattle: Reengineering Government in a City Lacking a Financial Crisis

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lizanne Lyons ◽  
Anthony D. Vivenzio
Keyword(s):  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Employee Involvement ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Electric Utility ◽  
City Council ◽  
Managed Competition ◽  
Labor Management ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Fiscal Pressure ◽  
The City

Without fiscal pressure, but with a clamor for re-engineering and service reform reverberating, the usually progressive Seattle began an improved labor-management relations effort through a series of project teams sponsored by departmental joint-labor management committees. The aim was to save costs and improve service. Unlike the other examples in this issue, Seattle didn't start with bargaining improvement or conflict resolution in mind, nor did it begin with a large and visible project like health care or a civic arena. Seattle started with a simple but ambitious plan, sponsored by labor and management, to create the capacity to set up well-structured ad hoc joint teams to attack potential savings and improvements under the umbrella of joint committees in each department. Cost savings and improvements came from such diverse services as the electric utility, the parks department, fleet maintenance, the municipal court and animal control. The resulting Employee Involvement Committees can discuss any issue, other than wage and benefits, that relates to services improvement. A citywide oversight committee helps to share lessons and to help put issues relevant to bargaining into play in the proper forum. With the help of a U.S. Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) grant, Seattle and the coalition of unions jointly built training and administrative capacity to ensure success. The grant and the city support expanded the number of management and union leaders involved with constructive problem solving. Over two dozen involvement committees were launched and made progress within a year, and many departmental joint committees were started or revitalized. The results of the EICs and related arrangements led to and created enthusiasm for expansive changes in the labor-management relationship. These innovative arrangements were also expected to affect the bargaining climate and a broader range of workplace, service and cost items. In a dramatic broadening of these early efforts, the city formed a city-level Labor Management Leadership Committee with key representatives from the city council, the mayor's office and cabinet department. The Seattle example, partly an alternative to managed competition, shows the possibilities in starting small, building capacity, focusing on service through joint efforts, and seeing the expanded trust moving to other aspects of the relationship and creating greater opportunities for improvement. This jointly authored perspective brings insight to understanding how the EICs became a successful event and an effective catalyst for broader change.

scholarly journals Public Expenditure Management and Political Budget Cycles: The Case of Colima City Council 2009-2018

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Omar Alejandro Pérez-Cruz ◽  
Edgar Alfredo Nande-Vázquez ◽  
Juan Carlos Martínez-Verdugo
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Public Expenditure ◽  
City Council ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Political Budget Cycles ◽  
Dummy Variable ◽  
Public Expenditure Management ◽  
Investment Spending ◽  
The City ◽  
Budget Cycles

The political budget cycles (PBC), as an evolutionary part of the economic political cycle (EPC), demonstrate the existence of opportunistic practices of economic variables, electoral, and budgetary that the politicians in power operate in their management to continue in office. In this sense, the literature suggests a pattern of opportunistic behavior on voters’ myopia, showing that there is little retrospective memory for voters, allowing the party in power to execute public policies successfully. Thus, the objective of the research is to analyze the existence of political budgetary cycles in the management of investment spending by the City of Colima from the years 2009 to 2018. Thus, the objective of the research is to analyze the existence of political budgetary cycles in the management of investment spending by the City of Colima from the years 2009 to 2018. This was analyzed using the panel data methodology (MCO; EF; EA), to estimate the variables dependent on investment and current expenditure, a dummy variable was introduced to identify the year before the election and to be able to control the influence of the electoral period on each regression. The results show that investment spending is related to election periods, population growth, and the federal social aid budget sector. Current expenditure was only related to population growth. This allows us to explain that spending is a resource that finances public works in the states of Mexico. Thus, this research shows that public works is a public expenditure that the states of Mexico apply more in times of elections.

Portuguese Sardines - from the ritual to the brand

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-120
Author(s):  
Cecília Avelino Barbosa
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Place Branding ◽  
Symbolic Capital ◽  
City Council ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
City Branding ◽  
The Past ◽  
Behavioral Expression ◽  
The City ◽  
City Identity

Place branding is a network of associations in the consumer’s mind, based on the visual, verbal, and behavioral expression of a place. Food can be an important tool to summarize it as it is part of the culture of a city and its symbolic capital. Food is imaginary, a ritual and a social construction. This paper aims to explore a ritual that has turned into one of the brands of Lisbon in the past few years. The fresh sardines barbecued out of doors, during Saint Anthony’s festival, has become a symbol that can be found on t-shirts, magnets and all kinds of souvenirs. Over the year, tourists can buy sardine shaped objects in very cheap stores to luxurious shops. There is even a whole boutique dedicated to the fish: “The Fantastic World of Portuguese Sardines” and an annual competition promoted by the city council to choose the five most emblematic designs of sardines. In order to analyze the Sardine phenomenon from a city branding point of view, the objective of this paper is to comprehend what associations are made by foreigners when they are outside of Lisbon. As a methodological procedure five design sardines, were used of last year to questioning to which city they relate them in interviews carried in Madrid, Lyon, Rome and London. Upon completion of the analysis, the results of the city branding strategy adopted by the city council to promote the sardines as the official symbol of Lisbon is seen as a Folkmarketing action. The effects are positive, but still quite local. On the other hand, significant participation of the Lisbon´s dwellers in the Sardine Contest was observed, which seems to be a good way to promote the city identity and pride in their best ambassador: the citizens.

Strategic Planning Information Systems Enterprise Architecture Planning Method Case Study of Semarang City Public Works Department

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-122
Author(s):  
Agustinus Fritz Wijaya ◽  
Mahendra Wahyu Prasetyo
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Value Chain ◽  
Enterprise Architecture ◽  
Business Processes ◽  
Swot Analysis ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Value Chain Analysis ◽  
Application Architecture ◽  
Chain Analysis ◽  
The City

Semarang City Public Works Department is a state-owned enterprise that works in the area of public services in the city of Semarang. Most of the technological conditions in the Public Works Department are still in manual data management, which is hampering business processes from going well. Therefore this research was conducted to design an Information System at the Semarang City Public Works Department using the Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) method which includes a SWOT analysis and Value Chain analysis. The existing framework in the Enterprise Architecture Planning (EAP) method can help align the data architecture and application architecture to get the expected results, which is achieving the business objectives of the City of Semarang Public Works Department so that business functions can run by the desired business processes. This research resulted in several proposals for the development of Information Systems and Information Technology in organizations including the development of several applications in the next 5 years.

Treading Angels: Edinburgh and its Festivals

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-317
Author(s):  
David McCrone
Keyword(s):  
City Council ◽  
The City ◽  
Public Bodies

How did Edinburgh become ‘festival city’? Despite appearances, it was not always so, and it acquired the accolade by happenstance; in the view of one observer, a ‘strange amalgam of cultural banditry, civic enterprise and idealism’. The official Festival's survival was down to the City Council, and it was funded almost entirely by public bodies. This was the central structure around which The Fringe developed, and The Traverse prospered, along with smaller festivals and events to become Festival City. The story sheds considerable light on how Edinburgh ‘works’, its strengths and weaknesses combined.

Transgender Narrative in Public Service Announcement

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 254
Author(s):  
Anna Puji Lestari ◽  
Yuliyanto Budi Setiawan
Keyword(s):  
Public Service ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Flood Control ◽  
City Government ◽  
Public Works ◽  
Public Service Announcement ◽  
City Branding ◽  
Feminine Style ◽  
New City ◽  
The City

After changing its city branding several times, Semarang now has a new city branding, namely "Semarang Variety of Culture." However, the city branding reaped contra from academics and cultural figures because Semarang was considered not sufficient yet in terms of representing its cultural diversity. Responding to this, the Semarang City Government and the Semarang City Public Works Department created a public service advertisement on CCTV socialization for flood control in the city of Semarang with a transgender figure as the ad star. This research was qualitative research designed with Seymour Chatman's Narrative Analysis. The research found a commodification and objectification of transgender people who imitated the feminine style of women in the advertisement. In other words, the public service announcement of Semarang CCTV socialization lowered the femininity, which is synonymous with women.The public service advertisement also violated the moral codes adopted by the majority of the Indonesian people.

Improved Oxygen Dissolution Control for Oxygen Activated Sludge

1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 101-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. C. Clifft ◽  
M. T. Garrett
Keyword(s):  
Activated Sludge ◽  
Control Method ◽  
Control Strategies ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Utilization Efficiency ◽  
Oxygen Production ◽  
Oxygen Utilization ◽  
Potential Cost ◽  
Oxygen Dissolution ◽  
The City

Now that oxygen production facilities can be controlled to match the requirements of the dissolution system, improved oxygen dissolution control can result in significant cost savings for oxygen activated sludge plants. This paper examines the potential cost savings of the vacuum exhaust control (VEC) strategy for the City of Houston, Texas 69th Street Treatment Complex. The VEC strategy involves operating a closed-tank reactor slightly below atmospheric pressure and using an exhaust apparatus to remove gas from the last stage of the reactor. Computer simulations for one carbonaceous reactor at the 69th Street Complex are presented for the VEC and conventional control strategies. At 80% of design loading the VEC strategy was found to provide an oxygen utilization efficiency of 94.9% as compared to 77.0% for the conventional control method. At design capacity the oxygen utilization efficiency for VEC and conventional control was found to be 92.3% and 79.5%, respectively. Based on the expected turn-down capability of Houston's oxygen production faciilities, the simulations indicate that the VEC strategy will more than double the possible cost savings of the conventional control method.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Hoffmann
Keyword(s):  
Chief Editor ◽  
City Council ◽  
The West ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
Warm Summer ◽  
The City

On a warm summer afternoon in 1561, Calvin’s chief editor donned a heavy stole, thick robes, and a gleaming tiara and proceeded to strut and fret his hour upon the stage in a comedy of his own devising. For little more than a century, Christians in the West had celebrated on August 6th Christ’s Transfiguration as the son of God in shining robes. But on this Sunday in Geneva, the city council, consistory, and an audience fresh from having attended edifying sermons at morning service gathered to applaud the transfiguration of the learned Conrad Badius into the title role of ...

scholarly journals The Interlocking Processes Constraining the Struggle for Sanctuary in the Trump Era: The Case of La Puente, CA

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 155
Author(s):  
Gilda L. Ochoa
Keyword(s):  
Status Quo ◽  
City Council ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
People Of Color ◽  
Transformative Change ◽  
Cautionary Tale ◽  
Community Members ◽  
White Supremacist ◽  
The Status ◽  
The City

By 10 January 2017, activists in the predominately Latina/o working class city of La Puente, California had lobbied the council to declare the city a sanctuary supporting immigrants, people of color, Muslims, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities. The same community members urged the school district to declare itself a sanctuary. While community members rejoiced in pushing elected officials to pass these inclusive resolutions, there were multiple roadblocks reducing the potential for more substantive change. Drawing on city council and school board meetings, resolutions and my own involvement in this sanctuary struggle, I focus on a continuum of three overlapping and interlocking manifestations of white supremacist heteronormative patriarchy: neoliberal diversity discourses, institutionalized policies, and a re-emergence of high-profiled white supremacist activities. Together, these dynamics minimized, contained and absorbed community activism and possibilities of change. They reinforced the status quo by maintaining limits on who belongs and sustaining intersecting hierarchies of race, immigration status, gender, and sexuality. This extended case adds to the scant scholarship on the current sanctuary struggles, including among immigration scholars. It also illustrates how the state co-opts and marginalizes movement language, ideas, and people, providing a cautionary tale about the forces that restrict more transformative change.

scholarly journals Together, We Can Make This Place Our Home: Civic Engagement Among Asian Immigrants

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 99-99
Author(s):  
Cindy Bui ◽  
Kyungmin Kim ◽  
Qian Song ◽  
Yuri Jang
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Asian American ◽  
American Culture ◽  
City Council ◽  
Asian Immigrants ◽  
The City ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Acculturation Factors

Abstract Civic engagement is an important dimension of age-friendly communities but has been understudied among Asian immigrant groups. While research has attributed greater civic engagement among immigrants to acculturation factors, the influence of acculturation may be conditioned upon Asian immigrants’ social network and place attachment to their city. We used data from the Asian American Quality of Life survey to analyze civic engagement activity (e.g., City council meeting, voting in a City election) among a diverse sample of middle-aged and older Asian immigrants in Austin, Texas (N = 994). 34.5% of the sample had participated in at least one civic engagement activity in the past 12 months. We examined how such civic engagement is associated with acculturation factors, and further examined whether one’s friend network and perception of their city moderated the association. We found that number of years lived in the U.S., familiarity with mainstream American culture, and number of friends in one’s social network were positively related to civic engagement activity. Furthermore, we found that the association between years lived in the U.S. and civic engagement was more pronounced for immigrants with larger friend networks; the association between familiarity with American culture and civic engagement was more pronounced for immigrants with more positive perceptions of the city. These findings highlight that acculturation may not operate alone in civic engagement among Asian immigrants. Rather, it may also be important to create opportunities for Asian immigrants to feel connected to their community and build meaningful friend networks to encourage civic engagement.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document