Council OKs 1st union contract

WASILLA — City council has unanimously given the green light to an agreement between the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 and 17 public works employees now represented by the union.

The contract represents the first official agreement between the city and a labor union in the city’s history.

Local 302 will represent public works employees who typically work in the field, such as road service workers, water and sewer utility workers, and buildings and parks employees, among others, Public Works Director Archie Giddings said.

The contract is for a three-year term, which is typical of union contracts with municipalities, Giddings said. In the contract, a pay scale for the next three years is defined, while health and retirement benefits will remain the same for the time being.

Giddings said he was very pleased with the union negotiations and agreement.

“It worked out nicely, I think,” Giddings said.

Local 302 had its first meeting with the city Tuesday to discuss implementation of the contract, which went into effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, said Jared Hamlin, Local 302’s business relations director.

“It’s been a pretty smooth transition because Archie Giddings was part of the negotiating team for the city,” Hamlin said.

In one major change under the contract, public works employees will be paid for their on-call time, something that hasn’t been the case in the past, Hamlin said.

Many employees in the department are on-call during certain weeks after their normal daily hours are over. Previous to the union contract, on-call workers were not paid to sit at home in case they were needed on a job. Now, workers will be paid two extra hours per day during the days they are on-call for the city.

Hamlin said the change should make wastewater treatment employees particularly happy because someone from the division must be on-call at all times. Because of that, each wastewater employee works 10 weeks of on-call time during the year.

“We’re not trying to be ridiculous,” Hamlin said of the contract. “We’re trying to do things that are fair.”

Hamlin also said Wasilla will benefit from Local 302 because the union has the ability to streamline some hiring for the city. For instance, if the city is looking for someone to run a piece of construction equipment officials could look to Local 302’s hiring hall with more than 650 qualified people ready to work immediately.

“They are going to have a tremendous cost savings,” Hamlin said.

That’s just one part of the contract that City Councilman Steve Menard said he favors. Besides the potential monetary savings for the city, Menard said he’s glad the workers are happy.

“A happy worker is a productive worker,” Menard said, adding he was pleasantly surprised at the speed and relative smoothness of negotiations.

“Everyone came to the table and it was pretty much, ‘We’re looking for these marks’, and they said, ‘Yep, we’re looking for the exact same thing,’ and we said, ‘Fantastic,’” Menard said.

The city still has two more negotiations to tackle this year with unions potentially representing employees at the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex and the city’s police department.

Menard said he hopes those negotiations go as smoothly as the public works employees’ did.

“This will certainly set a precedent for how smooth it should go,” Menard said.

Contact Michael Rovito at michael.rovito@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.