Three years later, Brookfield employees get union contract

Nearly three years after clerical employees inside Brookfield’s village hall called to be represented by a union, the village’s Board of Trustees on Aug. 13 ratified a five-year contract that will affect 10 employees in village hall, the Public Works Department and the Brookfield Fire Department.

The contract is retroactive to May 1, 2005, the year employees began negotiating a union contract with the village. It ends at the end of 2009. Employees will receive raises of between 2.5 and 4 percent per year over the length of the contract, with those who were employed by the village in May 2005 receiving pay retroactive to that date.

By Jan. 1, 2009, the lowest paid clerical employee, according to the list of personnel in the contract, will make $18.20 an hour, or roughly $36,000 per year. The highest-paid clerical employee will make $28.85 an hour, or just under $58,000 annually.

Those employed at the time the contract was signed will also receive a $200 singing bonus, a provision that arose in negotiations.

“It was part of the give and take in negotiations,” said John Baker of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 73, which represents the clerical workers. The SEIU also represents the village’s Public Works personnel. “I think, ultimately, we reached a fair agreement.”

The agreement also includes a health insurance package in which the village will pay 90 percent of both major medical and dental insurance premiums for employees. That mirrors the deal that the village has with its police officers. It also allows for 100 percent of tuition reimbursement for schooling related to the employee’s on-the-job duties.

What the contract really provides for village hall employees, however, is peace of mind.

“It provides for a grievance procedure, seniority rights and establishes other things that become part of a binding contract that can’t be changed by management,” Baker said.

In September 2004, when employees first sought to join the union, it was precisely issues of job security that were foremost in their minds.

In an article from the Sept. 1, 2004, Landmark, a village employee afraid to be identified said that the village was engaged in “unfair hiring practices” and that unqualified employees were being hired and “shoved down our throats.”

While today’s employees were reluctant to rehash the some of those reasons for unionizing, Village Manager Riccardo Ginex, who was hired in 2005, said that “the political atmosphere of the time” triggered the call for a union.