By MADDY VITALE
Just weeks before the start of the summer tourism season, there are signs of tension between Ocean City and its lifeguards as the parties try to work out a new contract amenable to both sides.
What would typically be closed-door negotiations between the city and the lifeguard union became an open discussion at Thursday night’s City Council meeting.
James Sullivan, a former Ocean City lifeguard in the 1970s, told Council that he is upset with how the negotiations have been going.
Sullivan, an attorney who has a vacation home in the resort, has volunteered his time to sit in on negotiations to help the union members.
He expressed frustration with the city for what he felt was the city’s disrespect for the lifeguard union during the negotiations.
“Some distributing things happened at the bargaining session that I attended. The treatment by the city’s team of the union’s bargaining team — it was dismissive,” Sullivan said.
The current negotiations involve the union that represents the lifeguards on the stands, not those in supervisory roles.
“We gave our last offer to the city negotiating team and we thought it was very reasonable, and it was not accepted,” Sullivan said.
Clearly agitated by Sullivan’s remarks, City Business Administrator George Savastano offered a response on behalf of Mayor Jay Gillian’s administration.
Savastano said in his more than 30 years in government, he has never negotiated a contract in public at a Council meeting.
“We don’t negotiate at Council meetings. I never had bargaining people come up and speak,” Savastano noted of what are normally private contract talks.
He said that the city has been negotiating with the lifeguard union in good faith.
Savastano disputed Sullivan’s remarks about the city allegedly being “dismissive” during the negotiation process. He said the city has been respectful.
“To suggest that the city is not negotiating in good faith, because it wasn’t said, but that was certainly the suggestion, is absolutely not the case. It’s not that simple,” he said in remarks to Council.
Savastano also explained that the mayor’s administration negotiates the contracts and then they are brought before Council for authorization. Contract discussions such as the public remarks by Sullivan are not typical of how negotiations are handled, he said.
“This is simply, in my view, a tactic. To me that is wrong. It is disappointing. I am pretty sure the mayor (Jay Gillian) indicated that we would be fair, and I would defy anyone in the history of the city to say that we haven’t been fair.”
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the Ocean City Beach Patrol. Over the past two seasons, there have been some changes at the top.
Allan Karas, who is a retired agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, was hired in 2021 as director of operations and oversees the beach patrol.
Former Beach Patrol Chief Mark Jamieson was reassigned to oversee special projects. The new OCBP Chief is Erich Becker, Karas said.
Karas is holding lifeguard tryouts in June in hopes of attracting more highly skilled and qualified candidates. During the height of the summer in 2022, there were 170 lifeguards, which was down about 10 guards from previous years. Karas said he hopes that number will increase to 190 this summer.
Sullivan voiced concerns that there are not enough veteran lifeguards on the stands to protect beachgoers.
“There are a handful of guards who have more than two or three years of experience in the stands,” he said, noting that rookie school alone cannot replace what longtime experience does for a lifeguard.
But pay has been a hurdle in hiring candidates.
Some residents went to City Council last summer to ask if the city could raise the lifeguard salary. It started at $12.80 per hour for rookie lifeguards and went up based on experience.
Residents said that considering New Jersey’s minimum wage increased to $15 an hour and many of the Boardwalk jobs and other seasonal jobs match that hourly rate, it was only fair that the lifeguards’ pay should increase as well.
A well-placed source said the city has offered pay of $17.50 an hour for starting lifeguards as part of the ongoing contract negotiations. Pay would increase in steps based on a lifeguard’s experience.
