Librarians in Rocky Hill, members of Sub-local 39 of UE Local 222/CILU, have a new four-year contract that locks in their health insurance percentages through June 30, 2012 and increases wages by 15.4 percent.
The union bargaining committee knew health insurance would be a tough issue in these negotiations. In the old contract they had annual maximum dollar caps on the annual premium contributions members had to pay, as did the other public employee unions in Rocky Hill. The committee was prepared to fight as long as necessary to maintain those caps, and not to be the first union to eliminate them. They were not the first, but ended up being the last, and the UE committee negotiated to hold the percentage at 10 percent of the annual premium for full-time employees through the term of the new contract.
The committee also fought hard over equity adjustments for two of its members, and submitted various proposals to accomplish that goal. The town would not agree to them, but in the end the union won an impressive 4 percent general wage increase for every member in each of the first two years, 3.9 percent in the third year and 3.5 percent in the final year of the agreement.
A major issue for the union was removing individual names from the new contract, a provision which had effectively set hourly rates by person rather than by job classification. While this remained a disputed issue until the very last minute, the UE committee did not back off, and the town eventually agreed to remove the members’ names from the new salary appendix and list the hourly rates by the positions instead.
A new benefit in this contract is long-term disability coverage, which provides 60 percent of the member’s salary up to a maximum of $5,000 per month in the event they become disabled. The union also increased the maximum number of paid sick leave days a member can accumulate from 150 to 180 days. Term life insurance was also increased from $15,000 to $20,000.
Other improvements included one additional paid holiday, increases to annual personal leave from three to six days, and adding grandchildren to bereavement leave.
It was hard bargaining with the town, and after reaching impasse on various proposals it took almost thirty hours of mediation through the state labor board to reach a tentative agreement. But that agreement was unanimously ratified by the members. The union bargaining committee consisted of Sub-local 39 President John Crowe and Terri Corry, assisted by UE Field Organizer John Woodruff.