Detroit (WWJ) -- Detroit Mayor Dave Bing called them "aggressive" negotiations. With a handshake at a room inside Cobo Center, Mayor Bing started contract talks with union leaders representing city workers.
The mayor and city negotiators were meeting with the Detroit Police Officers Association, Teamsters, AFSCME, and Amalgamated Transit Union.
Interim Detroit Mayor Ken Cockrel Jr. had proposed a ten percent pay cut for city workers late last year, however those cuts never happened.
The concessions are needed to help reduce a budget deficit that the mayor's office says is between 275 and 300 million dollars.
Before the negotiations began, Joe Valenti from Teamsters Local 214 told WWJ's Jayne Bower the Teamsters already agreed to several concessions presented by Cockrel, but never heard back from the city.
"We were the first union to grant concessions when Detroit was in trouble," Valenti said. "We gave a comprehensive counterproposal to the city of Detroit with about five of seven of their requests for concessions on those issues and never heard anything back from them."
Valenti said the union is willing to negotiate, but he'd like to do so as an individual union and not a group of unions.
AFSCME Local 207 Chief John Riehl says he didn't "really know what to expect" in the contract talks.
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