
Benld City Hall
Benld City Council members voted Wednesday night to approve the city’s first union contract with city workers. The action followed more than two hours of discussion behind closed doors focusing on a tentative contract hammered out between the employees’ bargaining unit and a committee of council members, and presented to the full council last month.
In open session, the council approved a motion by Ald. Peyton Bernot to include the Chief of Police and City Comptroller in the bargaining unit. A follow-up motion, also by Bernot, to approve the contract with Laborers International Local 338 and to authorize Mayor Gloria Sidar to initial clarifications in the contract language regarding accumulated vacation time and wage rates also was approved with Ald. Brian Frensko abstaining from the vote. Frensko’s spouse currently is employed as the City Comptroller.
With the inclusion of the City Comptroller and Chief of Police, the contract covers seven employees––including the Chief of Police, three full-time police officers, two full-time maintenance workers and the City Comptroller.
Employees voted in October 2015 to be represented by the Laborers Union, and the Illinois Labor Relations Board notified the City Council on Nov. 17 of the need to negotiate a contract. Negotiations to finalize the contract reportedly took place over the last three months.
Two special meetings set prior to Wednesday night’s meeting reportedly were cancelled because of the lack of a quorum. All council members were in attendance Wednesday night, along with City Attorney Rick Verticchio.
Bernot told The BenGil Post that the contract is a “good contract” that gives employees “job security, which they deserve.”
After meeting for about 90 minutes in executive session, the council called two representatives of Laborers Local 338 into the council chambers for a brief discussion. They emerged 15 minutes later and conferred privately with four members of the bargaining unit who attended Wednesday night’s session, presumably discussing the addition of the Comptroller and Chief of Police to the bargaining unit and the language alterations the council wanted to make in the contract.
The union representatives re-entered the council chambers and came out five minutes later as the council continued discussion of the contract.
The council returned to open session after a total of about two hours and 20 minutes to take action on the contract.
Bernot told The BenGil Post that the contract is a “good contract” that gives employees “job security, which they deserve.”
The three-year contract establishes base salaries for city employees and provides for annual wage increases of three percent, except for employees who experience a salary bump as a result of joining the bargaining unit, who will be exempt from the increase for the first year. The two added positions reportedly are the only ones subject to a salary bump due to the new contract.
The contract also provides for paid time off in lieu of personal days and sick leave.
Mayor Sidar said she will sign the contract once of new document with the language revisions is prepared for her signature.
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