Employees Picket Town Hall, Mediator Called

Frustrated East Hampton Town union employees, who have been working without a contract since the beginning of the year, took to the street in front of Town Hall for several hours Monday afternoon after negotiations last week failed to result in an agreement. They carried signs that displayed their concerns about receiving wage increases in pace with the cost of living and achieving salary parity with workers in nearby towns.

At issue, Miles Maier, the president of East Hampton’s Civil Service Employees Association said yesterday, is the bottom line — just how much the town is willing to offer in wage increases. “We need to fight to support our families; it’s getting tougher and tougher,” he said Tuesday. A mediator is now slated to step in.

Under its previous contract, signed with the previous town administration and covering 2011 through 2014, the union agreed to forego raises as the town struggled with a $27 million accumulated deficit as well as the pressures of a nationwide economic recession. In addition, Mr. Maier said, overtime rules were changed, decreasing opportunities for that added source of income, and a new policy adopted requiring insurance premium contributions by new employees.

“They were big concessions, but overall, we didn’t really push back,” Mr. Maier said. Now, however, with the town on stronger financial footing and budget surpluses accruing, workers want town officials to begin to make up for lost ground. “The slice of the pie in the town budget for C.S.E.A. members has not increased,” he said.

“They did it on our backs,” Mr. Maier said of the town’s gain in financial status. Wages for town workers in other East End towns are about a third higher than their East Hampton counterparts, he said. Adding to the climate among workers — and helping the town improve its budgetary outlook — is the fact that a number of staff positions have been left unfilled. That, Mr. Maier said, impacts the remaining employees, who are working to answer an increasing demand for services from the public.

The union head said the group is seeking 3 and 4-percent salary increases across the board, in addition to maintaining a salary step system, through which employees receive separate, standardized increases for the first eight years of their tenure, in addition to the wage increases called for in any new union contract.

The proposed contract voted down by the union membership in August, with a large turnout and a 139-to-6 tally, called for wage increases over the next four years of an initial 2 percent followed by two years of 2.5-percent increases and a final 2.25-percent rise. It also would have eliminated the step system.

An offer by the town during the most recent negotiation to maintain the step increase system was outweighed by a proposed concurrent decrease in annual raises, Mr. Maier said. 

Both sides have agreed to work with the mediator. “I have been negotiating with the C.S.E.A. in good faith and will continue to do so,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said yesterday. “At this point the union’s demand for a 24-percent wage increase over four years is unrealistic because it would increase the budget by $3 million and force the town to break the tax cap every year,” Mr. Cantwell said, adding, “I am happy to work with the union toward a fair and reasonable contract.”