Preparation Pays For Water Pollution Control Workers

June 1, 2018

UE Local 222 members who work for the East Windsor Water Pollution Control Authority ratified a new five-year contract with the WPCA commissioner in May. They prepared for contract negotiations by attending budget meetings before putting their proposals together. They then created a Power Point presentation which contained a biography of each employee describing their skills sets. The Power Point pointed out that over the last five-year contract UE members had saved the authority over a million dollars by doing maintenance and projects in-house and only employing contractors for skills they didn’t have to complete the job.

Wages for each year of the contract will be the Consumer Price Index plus one percent.

Insurance stays as a Preferred Provider Organization with a handful of members having to pay for the first time a contribution of three percent of their premium the first-year, four percent in year two and five percent in year three. A reopener will occur for years four and five. The members who were previously paying a five percent contribution will pay three percent the first year then follow suit with the other members in years two through five.

Job classifications have been included in this contract.  The new positions are Mechanic and Operator 3.

The Chief Operator and those hired before 1990 will receive 100 percent of their sick time upon retirement. Anyone hired after 1990 will get a buyout of 50 percent.

At present after 15 years of employment the members receive four weeks of vacation. Now, after twenty years of employment they will accrue one additional vacation day each year until year twenty-five.

A twenty-step program program has been implemented where employees can increase their skills at the plant. In the first year they could increase their pay by $1.20 per hour if they achieve all the requirements for the steps.

The negotiating committee consisted of Stephen Spellman, Steven Bednarz, Katherine Kneeland, Marc Brennan, Laura Michaels, Konrad Karolczuk and Ed Alibizek. They were assisted by UE Field Organizer Annie Bulger-MacDonald.

Subscribe!

If you like what you read, please consider subscribing to the UE NEWS — for as little as $5/year you can support great labor journalism and receive the print edition of the UE NEWS four times per year.

You can also sign up to receive monthly UE NEWS Bulletins via email, or follow UE on FacebookTwitterInstagram and YouTube.