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and STEPHANIE DESMON It was over before it really began. A 14-hour walkout by 15,000 municipal workers ended yesterday afternoon, when leaders of the city's blue- and white-collar unions reached a tentative contract settlement with Mayor Edward Rendell. The four-year contract includes a wage freeze for two years, followed by a two-percent raise in the third year and a three-percent raise in the fourth -- terms included in the city's "last, best" offer. But the unions won concessions in other areas. The contract includes a weak no-layoffs clause, allows workers to keep their own health plan and gives them more generous sick leave and holiday time than the city had previously offered. Union leaders called for the walkout at 12:01 a.m. yesterday after the two sides failed to reach an agreement during extensive negotiations. Yesterday, Rendell tried to strike a note of conciliation with the unions during a City Hall press conference, calling the settlement "an excellent contract for the people of the city and an excellent contract for the workers." "There are no winners in this," Rendell said. "The city didn't win. The unions didn't win. The only winners are the citizens of Philadelphia." City Council President John Street, speaking after Rendell, said "the magic moment" that helped break the stalled talks came early yesterday, when representatives of both the city and the unions realized "that the time came to make a deal." Street had acted as a mediator throughout the negotiations, shuttling between city representatives and union leaders. James Sutton, president of District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, emerged yesterday afternoon from the Holiday Inn, where talks have been going on for days to announce the end of the walkout. Sutton said he was "very satisfied" with the contract, which the District Council 33 Executive Board approved by a 15-6 vote. "Based on what's happening around the country, we think this is the best deal we could get," he said. Sutton gave much of the credit for the quick settlement to Street. Street, discussing the settlement earlier in the afternoon outside the hotel, said both the unions and the city got "90 percent" of what they wanted. But although Sutton and Street left the Center City hotel smiling, not everyone departed pleased with the outcome of the vote. Pete Matthews, a water department employee and member of the union's Executive Board, said he thinks the unions caved in to the city. "This is a terrible contract," Matthews said as he left the hotel. "We got a bad contract." Matthews said that he and his fellow union members will be back at work, but he said he will tell them to reject the contract when they vote on it by mail in the next few weeks. Sutton, who does not have a vote, recommended that the board accept the contract, Matthews said. Talks between the unions and the city broke off this summer. The state sent in a fact-finder to help continue the talks, but Rendell succesfully sued to prevent the findings from being used. Rendell presented what he termed his "last, best offer" on September 18, saying that he would implement the contract five days later, with or without union approval. The unions retaliated by saying that Rendell's implementing the contract amounted to a lockout. Union leaders then ordered a work stoppage if a new contract agreement had not been reached by 12:01 yesterday morning. Even after the stoppage began, negotiations continued through the night, with Rendell camping out on the floor of his office. Rendell said he met with Sutton, Street and Chief of Staff David Cohen in his office from just after midnight until around 2:00 a.m. yesterday. As negotiations progressed at the hotel, down the street at City Hall picketers blocked the northeast entrance to the building -- the only one open yesterday. For the most part, people shuffled in and out of City Hall as usual, but there were reported incidents of pushing, shoving and even an assault. A television cameraman filmed an incident in which a casually-dressed man in his fifties was thrown to the ground by a picketer. Rendell, who viewed the film, said he was "very angry" at the "despicable" action. "They have every right to picket," the mayor said early yesterday afternoon, before the settlement had been reached. "They have no right to inflict violence on anybody . . . This is unconscionable and will not be tolerated." Rendell said he would question the Civil Affairs Officers on the scene personally and called for a thorough investigation into the incident.

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