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Unions Resist Wage Freezes

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Unions Resist Wage Freezes

By John Voket &

Eliza Hallabeck

Representatives of the town hall employees union, which claims a 75 percent female workforce, question the reasoning behind denying its 40 members a one-year contract extension when the town granted a similar extension to Highway Department union members who are all male.

While town officials and Human Resources Manager Carole Ross have said they hope to stave off or minimize layoffs in the coming fiscal year by proposing wage freezes for every union member in town, including teachers, the highway union contract extension, which grants 3.5 percent raises, stands out as a curious anomaly.

Acknowledging in hindsight that the highway union extension may have been a mistake, First Selectman Joe Borst said the December 2008 decision still has a positive, long-term ramification.

“I’m regretting extending the highway’s [contract] now,” Mr Borst said. Nonetheless, the first selectman told The Bee this week that extending the highway contract negotiations to 2010 creates some “breathing room” between scheduled 2009 negotiations with union members working at town hall and the emergency dispatch center.

Responding to questions about his support of the highway contract extension, versus his rejection of the similar town hall request, Mr Borst said the process leading up to this summer’s town hall union contract negotiations was about to begin.

“Their contract is up in June. We’ve already indicated they should initiate the contract negotiation process,” Mr Borst said.

The town hall union, which has four more employees than the highway union, currently costs taxpayers $10,000 less in total salaries, pays a higher rate per member for health coverage, and contributes about $16,000 more per year in co-pays to the town’s health insurance program, according to the town hall’s union representative Karen Szilagyi.

“Right now, our members are paying about $50 per month for their health insurance, while highway union members pay about $26.50 for the same family of three,” she said, “and we currently pay $40,209 in co-pays to the highway [union’s] $24,840.”

If the town agreed to extend her union members’ contract an additional year, members would have received the same 3.5 percent pay increase, and the same $1 per pay period increase in health insurance contributions as the highway’s unit achieved in its extension.

Ms Szilagyi also noted ironically that the selectmen’s 2009 budget proposal eliminates a full-time building inspector, which will result in laying off one of her union’s dwindling number of male members.

Some town officials are hinting that this action could represent the tip of the iceberg as far as layoffs are concerned, if economic challenges increase as predicted. But so far it appears none of the town or school unions are coming forward voluntarily to reopen bargaining on a wage freeze at the 2008 pay grade. And Ms Ross acknowledged that a wage freeze could only occur if every union was on board.

“If all five unions agree to reopen talks on pay and benefits exclusively, the town could go into the ’09-’10 fiscal year providing no raises,” Ms Ross said. “It’s an all or nothing proposition — including the Board of Education [unions].”

School Superintendent Janet Robinson recently told The Bee that after initial resistance, at least some of the school district unions are expressing a willingness to bargain on wage freezes.

But her assertion was flatly rejected by teachers union President Ron Chivinski. He said the consensus among seven union presidents prior to school budget deliberations was that existing contracts will not be opened.

He said each school union contract is set up differently, and reopening talks to consider wage freezes would involve separate processes for each of the seven units.

“The various union groups did agree [in concept] that we could work together to come up with cost saving measures outside of opening out existing contracts,” said Mr Chivinski. “Every union was asked individually, and every group, as far as I know, has answered as their own organization.”

He said the teachers union was approached in December, and a list of questions was submitted to the administration, and from that the unanimous decision was made not to open contracts.

80 Becomes 7

“When we were approached,” said Mr Chivinski, “we were told, if we didn’t freeze our contract, which included a step freeze, not only would [teachers] not receive a raise, [they] wouldn’t jump up a step,” then up to 80 teachers could lose their jobs.

 “You’re talking firing more teachers than exist in this building,” said Mr Chivinski, regarding the Newtown Middle School where he is an eighth grade teacher.

But the proposed budget, which was presented by Superintendent of Schools Janet Robinson to the school board on January 27, only provided nine teacher positions anticipated for elimination for next year. And when the Board of Education voted on the proposed budget on February 10, it passed with changes that added two of the proposed teacher cuts back to the budget.

Teachers’ salaries in the district, however, will be affected by proposed furlough days and a reduction of three half days from the school year, totaling six days of pay. At the Board of Education’s meeting on February 10, administrators in the district announced they would accept furlough days also.

Regular negotiations regarding teachers’ salaries will be taking place this summer, according to Mr Chivinski, and the current contract for teachers is good until 2010.

Mr Chivinski said a Board of Finance decision on December 8 to support reducing the overall budget to 95 percent of the current year — a number which he said seemed arbitrary — went into the decision of the teachers union to not accept wage freezes.

The teachers’ representative said now that the Board of Education has approved its budget proposal, he will wait to see what the Board of Finance’s deliberation brings.

 “If they insist on a 95 percent budget or a zero percent budget, you’re going to have not nine teachers cut. You’re going to have a significant amount of teachers cut, unless somebody stands up for this budget and says, we’re unwilling to go down that road,” Mr Chivinski said.

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