County jail workers vote to join Teamsters

Lawrence County jail corrections officers and cooks voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to join the Teamsters union.

The 35-to-3 vote confirmed that the contingency of workers are ready to enter bargaining negotiations for a new contract under Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen and Helpers Union Local 261.

The election was conducted by secret ballot in two shifts, morning and afternoon, in the commissioners meeting room of the courthouse. Members of the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board facilitated the election. Jail workers marked the ballots privately inside an old-fashioned voting booth, then deposited them into a ballot box .

A jail management employee was in the room to monitor who was voting.

Lawrence County prison board president David Gettings provided the vote count Wednesday.

“They’ll start with a brand new contract,” he said. “They’ll start from scratch and the two sides (union and county negotiators) will have to come up with a contract.”

The  jail employees lost their bargaining unit representation in mid-January, when Construction and General Laborers Union Local 964, terminated the relationship and affiliation with the jail after 40 years.

The workers’ contract under Local 964 had expired Dec. 31 and negotiations with the county were stalemated. The employees continued to work under the old contract terms while negotiating with Local 964, until the union suddenly dropped the jail workers, an unprecedented action that left no prospect for a future contract.

The union manager had written a letter to the workers, citing mistrust as the main reason for the breakdown of their relationship.

In reaction to the severance from Local 964, the commissioners subsequently approved a list of cost-saving personnel policy changes for the jail workers, which included switching them to the county’s health insurance plan under Blue Cross and Blue Shield and requiring the workers to contribute to their coverage — a potential savings of $25,000 to $30,000 a year for the county.

Now, negotiations will begin again under the Teamsters representation.

“The ball’s in their court,” county administrator James Gagliano said Wednesday upon learning of the vote count. “We’ll wait to hear from the union now. I imagine we’ll have to start negotiations, but I don’t know if there’s any time frame established. We’ll see what the next step is.”

Source: New Castle News