Delaware, OH
Members of UE Local 799 have voted overwhelmingly to ratify a new two year contract that includes a wage increase, contract language improvements, and no concessions. Members of the local include the food service workers, maintenance workers, custodians, bus drivers, mechanics and dispatcher for the Delaware City Schools in Central Ohio. Wages were increased by 1.5 percent effective July 1, and there will be a wage and insurance re-opener on July 1, 2011. There were no changes to current health insurance.
The local made an important breakthrough on an issue it has fought for more than a decade. It succeeded in removing a “grandfather clause” that exempted employees hired before April 1999 (when the local was organized) from the contract’s “fair share” provision. Effective at the start of the 2011-12 school year, all workers in the bargaining unit will be required either to be dues-paying members of Local 799, or to pay the local an equivelant “fair share” representation fee.
The union also won the right for second-shift custodians to leave the job and leave their buildings to attend the monthly union meeting, provided the custodian then stays past the end of his/her shift to make up the time spent at the union meeting.
Employees who are required to work on snow days and other days when schools are closed will, at the discretion of their supervisors, be permitted to leave when their jobs are completed and be paid for the full day. This will apply primarily to custodians and maintenance workers who must come to work on snow days to clear snow and perform maintenance tasks which sometimes require less than a full shift.
The union made several improvements in the personal leave article of the contract. Employees who work only during the school term and not year-round get the summers off but do not receive any paid vacation. To allow workers to take time off during the school year for family vacations and other needs, the new contract will allow all employees to take up to take off up to five consecutive workdays as unpaid leave. A worker with perfect attendance in any half school year will earn two paid personal days; employees may earn up to four paid personal days under this provision. This doubles the allowance under the previous contract. Personal leave language is also improved to require the employer to answer requests for personal time within three days.
CLEAN SHIRTS FOR FOOD SERVICE
An important issue to food service workers was the provision of uniform shirts. While the contract requires the school district to provide custodial and maintenance workers with five changes of uniform per week through a uniform rental service, language in the previous contact provided food service workers with five shirts in the first year, but only three in the second year, which workers must launder themselves. Members were concerned that being forced to wear dirty or stained clothing while serving food was unprofessional and a disservice to the students. The new contact will require the employer to provide each food service employee with five uniform shirts per year.
Although she was not a member of the bargaining committee, the union leaders asked Elizabeth Bertsche, a food service worker, to attend a negotiating session and explain why having more work shirts provided was so important to those workers. Bertsche says that she told management negotiators that “...we just get too dirty to be having only three shirts.” The change in the contract means a lot to food service workers, she says, because, “It’s important to us to be able to look presentable to the kids.
“Overall we did OK,” says Local 799 President Nina Williams. “We didn’t have to give up anything – no concessions. Williams points out that the 1.5 percent raise is also what was achieved by the other two unions in the Delaware Schools – teachers and clerical workers. “We got some good language changes that benefit our people. I think we did good, especially in this economy.”
Local Recording Secretary Mary Davis-Fisher agrees. “For the times we’re going through right now, I think that we did very good. We didn’t lose anything and we were able to get a raise. That’s what the people asked us to do.”
The Local 799 bargaining committee consisted of President Nina Williams, Vice President Dan Compton, Chief Steward Kathy Goddard, Financial Secretary Tami Gardner, and Recording Secretary Mary Davis-Fisher. They were assisted by UE International Rep. Dennis Painter.