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Islip Custodial, Grounds, and Maintenance Employees Unanimously Approve New Contract
After a difficult twenty month negotiations that included mediation, UPSEU and its negotiating team scored a contract victory that will significantly increase the wages of all unit employees.
Throughout the negotiations, UPSEU and its team had one significant objective: to bring wages into the median within Suffolk County. With historically low wages tied to a salary/increment total money scheme developed in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, the unit’s wages were in a hole.
Recognizing that this was the negotiations where the district had to view the wages differently, UPSEU continually presented documents to support its position. The district could not dispute the issue and the problem, although the parties had a dispute as to how the matter needed to be fixed.
A breakthrough developed when UPSEU’s President Kevin E. Boyle, Jr. and a sub committee of the bargaining team met with the superintendent and the district’s attorney. “We were able to directly convey to him the significance of the problem,” stated Boyle.
Rather than going to fact-finding, the negotiating team agreed to continue bargaining after the superintendent committed to work with the union to remedy the salary problem. After a series of additional bargaining sessions, a breakthrough developed.
On February 11, 2008 the district responded to the union’s comprehensive proposal to increase the salaries. As a result, an agreement was reached that addressed the unit’s objectives. A membership meeting followed where the agreement was unanimously enthusiastically agreed to by the unit.
The agreement, in addition to providing annual raises, will provide unit employees with significant annual adjustments throughout the agreement. An off step adjustment that had ended in the mid 1990’s, and that only included a small number of unit employees, was expanded to include all employees who pass the top of the ten step salary schedule. Now all unit members will receive an annual off step adjustment to their pay in addition to raises and adjustments.
Improvements to several areas of the contract were achieved including an increase in the maximum amount of sick days and increases in benefit fund contributions, amongst other gains.
UPSEU’s President Kevin E. Boyle, Jr. commenting on the results of the negotiations, stated, “The Superintendent and the Board of Education came through after seeing that the data provided by UPSEU truly demonstrated what we had been saying all along. A successful contract could not have been achieved without the unwavering commitment of the team to achieve its objective. They did an outstanding job.”
Congratulations to the negotiating team for a tremendous job. Led by UPSEU Chief Steward Tom O' Hare and Assistant Steward Edward Cramer, Jr., the team of Mitchell Miga, Nicola Carine, and Steve Saidler clearly delivered a great agreement for their co-workers.
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