DeKalb city employees agree to contract terms

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By ELENA GRIMM DEKALB - In a 44-3 vote, city employees who have been working without a contract since Jan. 1 approved a tentative agreement with the City of DeKalb last Wednesday. A round of negotiations began Aug. 22 with a Rockford-based federal mediator meeting with city staff and union representatives of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. From that and subsequent discussions, the members of Local 813 ratified the proposal Wednesday night after about 90 minutes of discussion and answering members’ questions in a basement classroom of City Hall, the AFSCME Council 31 staff representative assigned to the negotiations said. “People asked good questions,” at Wednesday’s ratification meeting, AFSCME staff representative Tyler Brown said. A majority of the 75 affected city workers attended and cast their vote on the proposal. The contract had also been recommended for approval by a five-member union negotiation committee and AFSCME Council 31, Brown said. The package provides for a new three-year agreement with 4 percent pay raises each year, which will be retroactive back to Jan. 1, which is what they would have received had they not been working under an expired contract. The average salary for this group is $52,000, Brown said. City management has agreed to reduce the retirement age for members from 60 down to 55 in agreement for the union accepting a new insurance package, Brown said. The health insurance package will change from members paying a percent of the premium rather than a percent of their wages for their contribution, beginning July 2009. Next, the contract’s language will be reviewed before it goes before the city council for ratification, Assistant City Manager Rudy Espiritu said. “We just gotta make sure it’s all cleaned up,” he said Wednesday. The earliest the contract will go before the city council is at its regular meeting scheduled for Sept. 8. “Overall, we have a very good working relationship with the current city administration, and this new contract ensures we can continue to have that relationship going forward,” Brown said. Brown added that this relationship “began to get tested” when workers worked for eight months under an expired collective bargaining agreement. “But provided this agreement is ratified by both the city council and our membership, that will all be water under the bridge and we can move forward,” he said.

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