Municipal workers in Groton, who are members of Sub-local 62 of UE Local 222, ratified a new three-year contract after two years of negotiation and a one-year extension. Workers will receive a 2 percent general wage increase each year.
Going into contract negotiations this year, Windsor Locks school paraprofessionals expected difficulty because the school board would not share their proposed budget for the coming school year. The union also knew layoffs were possible. As of this writing a school budget has not been passed by the town.
Nevertheless, the union achieved a three-year contract with wage increases of 2 percent, 2 percent, and 1 percent. The school board wanted to cut the pay for substituting in half but ultimately agreed to retain the current contract language.
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As their contract expiration neared, the bargaining committee of UE Local 1107 met with their employer, Freudenberg NOK, with a lot at stake. Wisconsin’s 2015 anti-union “right-to-work”, which outlaws union shop language in all new contracts, hung over the local’s head. A lot of new workers had been hired since spring, and almost half the work force was impacted by a divisive two-tier wage system forced on the bargaining unit during the deep downturn in the auto parts business in 2009.
Frank Rosen, who served as president of UE District 11 for 14 years and whose UE membership and activism goes back 65 years, died November 28 in Chicago at age 91. Rosen made tremendous contributions to improving the lives of UE members and all workers, as well as to the peace, civil rights, and consumer rights movements.
UE Local 1021 members reached agreement on a new contract with their employer KRACO Enterprises on June 8, the day after the California primary election. The two-year includes hourly wage increases of 60 cents each year, improved job security language, retirement benefits, improved work schedules etc.
On October 1, members of UE Local 140 overwhelmingly ratified a new three-year agreement with Locke Insulators, Inc. The contract brings pay increases of 2.25 percent, 2.5 and 2.5, as well as a ratification bonus of $500 for each member. The union also won classification upgrades for the extrusion department, a pay upgrade of $1.14 for the affected workers. There were no major changes in healthcare.
After three arduous months of bargaining Local 221’s negotiating committee reached a new three-year contract with the Champaign Valley Office of Economic Opportunity (CVOEO) in early February, three months after the expiration of the old contract.
Blue collar employees of the Town of Berlin have a new three-year contract that will run through June 2018. The workers are members of Sub-local 52 of UE Local 222. The union consists primarily of employees of the Public Works Department, golf course, Parks and Recreation, and the town’s custodians.
The members of Local 269 reached a contract settlement with their employer, Erving Paper, in record time and a day before the April 30 expiration of the old contract.
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