Sewage Workers’ Contracts Bring Long-Delayed Raises (as long as 15 years without a cost-of-living)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/nyregion/12sewage.html

By RUSS BUETTNER
Published: April 11, 2010

Two unions of workers at the city’s sewage treatment plants have ratified contracts negotiated with the city last month, ending long-running disputes that included legal challenges and as long as 15 years without a cost-of-living raise.

The deals will increase pay by 43 percent to 63 percent for most workers in the plants. Senior plant managers, who had gone the longest without a raise and earned less than some people they supervised, will receive a raise of 83 percent. Workers gave up sick days and made other minor concessions.

“It was a long, hard struggle with a lot of sacrifice by members and their families,” said James J. Tucciarelli, the president of Local 1320 of District Council 37, the union that represents sewage treatment workers. “Hopefully they can start living some kind of normal life now.”

That union’s last contract expired in 2002. Union members voted 700-32 to ratify the new contract, Mr. Tucciarelli said on Friday.

Plant managers, represented by Local 3 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, had not had a contract since 1995. They ratified their contract late last month in a 176-1 vote, said Sean Fitzpatrick, business representative for the union.

The two unions represent about 1,100 workers at the city’s 14 sewage treatment plants, which process more than a billion gallons of raw sewage a day.

FULL story at link.