The Owego Village Board this week approved a new contract with the CSEA–the union representing workers in the Public Works Department and Sewage Waste Treatment plant.
The Board has been negotiating a new contract with the union over the past several months. The last contract expired in August of 2011 but union workers continued to do their jobs throughout 2012 without a formal agreement. A previous deal with the CSEA was rejected by the Board about a year ago. Owego Mayor Kevin Millar said when the Board rejected that previous contract, a mediator was called in and a deal was finally reached between the CSEA team and Village negotiators about a week and a half ago. He said that on Monday the Board approved the new contract unanimously with one member absent.
The new contract includes a 1%-of-salary pay increase retroactive for 2011, 1.25% for 2012; 1.75% for this year and 2% increases in 2014 and 2015. But Millar said it’s better than the original agreement that the Board rejected.
Also under the new agreement, health insurance costs for the village will go down and new CSEA hires will assume more of their own health care expenses. The new contract covers 16 workers in the village.
