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     Current Issue Highlights Highlights Archive             Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: July 2000 UNION'S LEGAL ACTION FORCES CITY TO PAY UP Annuity payments owed members were finally pried loose from the city by union attorneys after the administration reneged on paying obligations it agreed to when the last contract was ratified. The payments are now being made on behalf of eligible rank and file members. Spurred by the tight-fisted attitude of the city administration which was denying the union the opportunity to invest funds for its members, Local 237 President Carl Haynes ordered that grievances be filed charging the city with violating its contracts with the union. "It was just another example of the city administration's indifference to its obligations when it comes to the working people who keep the city operating," Haynes asserted. "They give lavish raises to their cohorts, but make city employees fight to get what is justly theirs." The Local official ordered the grievances filed in April when the city continued to stall on making payments to annuity funds which were negotiated in the 1995-1999 contract. Under the agreements reached with the union, the city is required to pay a lump sum of $522 for every city employee who was on the payroll between March 1, 1996, and February 28, 1997 and working in a covered title on March 1, 1999. It is required to provide funding of $2.64 a day, beginning Dec. 1, 1999, toward annuities for most of the citywide employees. The charges against the city, filed by Attorney Todd Rubinstein, the Local's Grievance Coordinator, requested that all monies owed be forwarded "forthwith together with interest." Haynes noted that the city wouldn't part with the funds until a trust agreement was prepared and signed. "We could have prepared it, but they wouldn't let us," he said. "They insisted it be prepared by the Corporation Counsel, but it wasn't done until after the grievance was filed. They stalled until May and the first installment was not paid until the following month." The first payment will go toward the $522 annual annuity owed union members for the period from March 1, 1996, until February 28, 1997, according to Paul Juergensen, director of the Local's Welfare Fund. He said members would receive statements reflecting the annuity payments by early next year, after all payments are received. |
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