Abstract
Health care costs and the nature of the benefits package are an issue that plagues most jurisdictions. Written in a cooperative effort to reflect the perspectives of the labor and management co-chairs, Peoria's story is an example of the cooperation that has developed in that city. In addition to describing a remarkable city-wide effort to reduce health care costs and maintain an attractive benefit package, the article shows how success on a topic of importance to the parties and the community can sow the seeds of a broader cooperative relationship that improves services, quality of work life and the nature of the labor-management relationship. By agreement, the city and labor unions took the health care plan off the bargaining table, and instead, gave it to a city-wide joint committee, which solved the crisis and manages this difficult issue. Among other advances that mark a change from the past, the positive effects from the dramatic success in health care has contributed to a first-ever, five-year negotiated settlement between the city and the firefighters. Read about how Peoria accomplished this change by bold risk taking and by carefully nurturing the effort.
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