UPSEU Fairfield Town Hall Members Vote for New Contract

"By a vote of 63 to 11, Fairfield Town Hall Unit members ratified a new three year agreement," stated UPSEU Regional Director ron Suraci. "By working together as a team, we were able to reach a fair agreement with the town," Suraci added. Wage increases in all three years of the contract , in addition to limiting insuarnce costs were both highlights of the agreement. congratulations Fairfield Town Hall members!

AFSCME Members Vote to Join UPSEU Once Again

In a Connecticut State Labor Relations Board secret ballot election held this past February, the forty seven member Ansonia Municipal unit chose UPSEU over their existing union, AFSCME. UPSEU won the election with an overwhelming 70% of the vote.

UPSEU’s Labor Relations Representatives Matt Geer and Roger Stolen, who worked with the unit, praised the efforts of the group in leading the way for better representation. A special thanks to the core committee that helped this effort.

UPSEU would also like to thank the Ansonia Department of Public Works, who left AFSCME in 2008 to join UPSEU, for referring their co-workers. We welcome the Ansonia Municipal Employees to the UPSEU family and look forward to serving them.

Monroe Board of Education Paraprofessionals Vote UPSEU

In an election held on March 16, 2010, the nearly 100 member Monroe Paraprofessional unit voted to join UPSEU in a state run election. The unit had been represented by the Connecticut State Employees Association, SEIU. Prior to the vote, the unions squared off in a debate to provide unit members the opportunity to have their questions answered with both unions in the same room.

The debate proved to be pivotal, as the CSEA/SEIU couldn’t explain their poor past performance. Most members had never seen a CSEA or SEIU representative. The unit had extremely low wages, paid the most for health coverage in the district and amazingly had no pension plan, which is unheard of for public employees in Connecticut and elsewhere.  UPSEU President Kevin E. Boyle, Jr. who headed up the debate for UPSEU drew the stark differences between UPSEU and CSEA-SEIU.

The Custodial, Maintenance, and Security Unit, who UPSEU began representing three years ago, assisted in getting the message out telling the paraprofessionals of our work on their behalf. UPSEU secured an agreement for this unit that was dramatically better than the CSEA-SEIU contract negotiated at the same time three years ago. CSEA-SEIU couldn’t account for the significant difference in what they secured and what UPSEU secured. The CSEA-SEIU was also criticized for a series of dues increases passed along to the unit without their right to vote on these increases. In the end, the paraprofessionals saw the difference and decided UPSEU was the union for them. This is the seventh unit in Connecticut to leave CSEA-SEIU to join UPSEU since 2003. UPSEU has already begun to work for the Monroe Paraprofessionals.

Since January 1, 2010 UPSEU has welcomed 13 new Connecticut units, adding 620 new members to the UPSEU family. UPSEU now represents 100 separate bargaining units in Connecticut.