CWA 1180 - Calendar

Negotiations update

May 2007

City Contract

Local 1180 sat down with the City on May 1 for the first bargaining session on the next multiyear contract since the union presented its demands in mid-January.

Those demands include a substantial wage increase, in keeping with the United Federation of Teachers’ recent 7.1 percent raise over two years; new long-term experience differentials; improved transfer and reassignment policies; and more. The union also seeks to extend Annuity Fund contributions and five-year experience differentials to new Local 1180 members in the Administrative Job Opportunity Specialist and Coordinating Manager titles and win payment of the full outstanding 1 percent raise.

“On the economic issues, [Assistant Labor Commissioner] Renee Campion said we’re looking at the same parameters as the UFT contract, and we’re going to form a technical working group that will do the costing,” says Local 1180 first vice president Linda Jenkins. “On the noneconomic issues, such as posting of vacancies and extending the time to hold transfer requests on file, the City said no, arguing that they’ll settle those issues with District Council 37 as part of the Citywide Contract. But we haven’t dropped anything at this point.”

On the 1 percent, says Local 1180 president Arthur Cheliotes, “the City still hasn’t accepted our proposals. We sent a letter to [Labor Commissioner] James Hanley proposing that we move this issue to arbitration.”

He says that he expects the union to be in intensive bargaining sessions for the next two months, with negotiating dates set for late May and early June. “We want to pick up the pace of talks so that we can reach a swift agreement covering all of these issues,” Cheliotes says.

Members of the local, meanwhile, are continuing to meet with members of the City Council to ask them to put pressure on the mayor to deliver on the 1 percent raise. So far three council members have committed to sending letters to the mayor.

Human Rights First

One of Local 1180’s private sector shops, Human Rights First, opened bargaining on a new contract on April 25, with a second session on May 2.

Local 1180 second vice president Bill Henning is representing the union along with a bargaining committee composed of members of the shop. “Health insurance is going to be a big issue, because our current contract leaves workers subject to changes in the health plan,” Henning says. “We want the new contract to guarantee the same level of benefits.” Pay raises, he says, are another key area. “We’re playing catch up,” Henning says, “because the health insurance changes management made in the last few years eroded some of the salary gains we made in the last contract.”

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