Public works employees give union thumbs up

WASILLA — In a 13-2 vote, the city’s public work department employees decided Tuesday to allow the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 302 to negotiate a contract on their behalf.

Jean Ward, a hearing officer with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency, said the agency had tallied the ballots, but it will be five more days before the vote is officially certified.

The vote is the first of three union organizers hope to hold in city departments. The Wasilla Police Department is considering petitions from the Public Safety Employees Association Local 803 (PSEA) and Teamsters Local 959. Laborers Local Union 341 has filed a petition to represent employees of the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex.

Both of those petitions are the subject of negotiations between the city and the unions over what type of employees can be included in a potential union bargaining unit. The Teamsters, PSEA and the city had their hearings before the state’s Labor Relations Board Thursday and today. The Laborers and the city will have their hearing March 6 and 7.

Jared Hamlin of Wasilla does business relations work for the International Union of Operating Engineers and emphasized that Tuesday’s vote does not turn Public Works into a union shop.

“All this does is it gives us the legal right to sit down with the city,” Hamlin said.

In other words, the union will negotiate with the city, come up with a contract acceptable to workers and city administration, and that contract will be put to a vote.

“If they vote ‘no’ on it then we have to go back to the bargaining table,” Hamlin said.

If the vote is “yes,” the contract will go before city council and, if approved, will go into effect, Hamlin said, adding the union does not discuss what types of things it is seeking in contract negotiations.

With the contract in place, public works employees will be required to join the union, Hamlin said. That’s assuming the negotiated contract requires all employees to be unionized, which it might not.

“What’s in this contract is what the workers want in it,” Hamlin said, though the unions and the city have their own interests.

Contracts generally last three years before they are re-negotiated, Hamlin said. He’s been working with the city’s public works employees for about a year.

At first, Hamlin was surprised to learn the city was not a part of the Public Employee’s Relations Act and, unlike the Municipality of Anchorage, had no in-house replacement for the act. PERA, he said, is the piece of legislation that deals with public employees’ ability to unionize.

“The workers at the city of Wasilla had no basic rights at the workplace that you have, that I have, that people at Taco Bell have,” Hamlin said.

So Local 302 joined an effort the city’s police department had already begun with the Teamsters to put Proposition 1, which applied PERA to the city, on the ballot. Eventually the Laborer’s union joined as well. The measure passed in October.

“That was grassroots, man. That’s as grassroots as it gets. We knocked on doors in the rain,” Hamlin said.

Hamlin emphasized that the union has so far had a great working relationship with the city that he hopes will continue.

At heart, he said, the union hopes its relationship with the city will pay dividends on both ends. The workers will have a clearly defined contract and the city will benefit from a number of union resources, he said. The union has its own pension plan and health care system. The union can fill open positions at public works through its roster of trained, eligible workers.

“Our whole goal at the city of Wasilla is to make it more efficient,” Hamlin said.

Asked if he has started working with other public works departments in the Valley — the Mat-Su Borough, Houston and Palmer all have such divisions — Hamlin said for now he’s focusing on the Wasilla contract negotiations.

“We don’t when to spread ourselves thin,” he said.

Once the process is complete, he said opportunities for expansion in the Valley are something the union may consider.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.