City Delays Approving Collective Bargaining Agreement With Wastewater Treatment Employees to Next Meeting

Approving a collective bargaining agreement between the City of Cortland and Teamsters Local 317 has been delayed until their next meeting on February 3rd. Teamsters Local 317 now represents employees at the city’s wastewater treatment facility. The reason to delay authoring the collective bargaining agreement is to allow members of the council to review

Providing an overview of the agreement was the City of Cortland’s Corporation Council, Randall Lewis. Mr. Lewis provided highlights under the proposed agreement with the Teamsters Union; this is the first time employees at the treatment facility have been represented by the Teamsters as they previously were an independent union. He said the city and Teamsters were able to negotiate a 4-year agreement with a first-year market-rate adjustment for pay; Lewis added employees at the facility are underpaid compared to other wastewater facilities in the region.

The remaining 3 years under the agreement will consist of an hourly rate adjustment with a .75 cent increase in year 2, a dollar in year 3 and another .75 cent increase in year 4. The city also reduced the licenser stipend and insurance opt-out adjustments to an hourly rate, which Lewis added is something the city has done with all their contracts. It also prevents any payroll errors in calculating overtime rates.

“We standardized vacation accrual with other bargaining units, which starts on January 1st. We also got rid of the convoluted system of getting a week after 6-months then your allotment on January 1st then another week after 12-months. Now we just pro-rate it as of the day of hire.” Lewis said to the Mayor and Common Council.

Lewis continued on saying the city and Teamsters “cleaned up” language issues within the agreement and also created a new position within the wastewater facility. The position, Lewis says, was something the Teamsters wanted within the facility, Wastewater Safety Coordinator. The city had the position, but not as a standalone, but a stipend position for an existing employee.

“The position that’s been created is primarily safety for the wastewater plant, secondarily safety for the city as a whole, and third would still be used as an operator role if the meter rose.” Lewis explained. “It’s kind of a hybrid position.”

Councilmember Katy Silliman asked what was the exact percentage rate of the pay increases, highlighting other contracts with the city are via percentages and seeing if this raise adjustment per-year is similar to that of other contracts the city has with different unions. Mr. Lewis explained the raises average out to be about 3%.

“All right, so I hear… I heard you say 3% when I look at the contracts… the, call it market rate adjustment for the first year. That seemed fairly significant. And then the change to longevity seemed fairly significant.” Council member Brian Tobin said. “I’m having a hard time supporting because I heard what you said that it’s budgeted, but I would feel more comfortable seeing the numbers in terms of projected cost because without the direct comparison based upon current employees in terms of job title and years that they have, it’s not just going to be the salary increase, it’s the longevity [and] how that impacts…. I’m not comfortable supporting it tonight.”

Lewis explained when the city budgets to do the contract negotiations, they look at the bargaining unit as a whole and map out what [the employees] would make in each year of the contract and bring it down based on base vs base and what the overtime was for each position in the previous years. He added that he is confident that the budget covers the numbers presented in the agreement. Lewis also added that out of all city departments, the wastewater treatment facility has flexibility with how they’re able to significantly increase their rates for dairy waste, revenues that are currently unbudgeted.

Mayor Steve expressed no issues delaying authorizing the agreement until their next meeting, adding the employees would receive retro pay in that timeframe, but asked if it would be a tenuous thing for the city needing to review additional documentation. Steve, along with the Common Council stressed that delaying the vote is not a sign of the city against the agreement, but just additional review of documents. The main reason to review additional documents is to see the long-term impacts on the city budget of the proposed agreement.

Local leadership for the Teamsters Union was to be notified on the tabling of the agreement until their February 2nd meeting the following day, Wednesday. Additional information on the proposed agreement may be found HERE.