Union praises Moore employee's contract

Municipal employees will see their pay increase by more than four percent under a new union contract agreed to last week by the American Federal of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Moore City Council.

The contract — the first for the Moore employees’ union — was approved by a 7-0 vote at last Monday’s city council meeting.
Union leaders praised the agreement.

“No one is more excited about this contract than the city employees in Moore who have worked so hard for this,” said William Bryles, President of Local 2406, which represents the city employees in Moore. “We organized a union in Moore to have a voice in decisions about our jobs and our community and this contract provides that voice.”

Under the contract, employees would see a 4.34 percent increase in base wages and a 2.5 percent increase in merit-pay steps for those below the top step.

Those increases, Moore city manager Steve Eddy said, will apply “to about 100” city employees who are eligible for union membership.

For an employee at the low end of the city’s pay scale, the increase means about $75.11 more per month. An employee at the top end of the scale would see an increase of $249 monthly, he said.

The 2.5 percent stipend would add from $758 to $1,271 to an employee’s annual pay.

“There are less than a hundred who are eligible by statute to be in the union,” Eddy said. “I don’t, frankly, know yet how many members the contract will cover, but it will include all employees eligible to be in the union.”

Longtime city employees who have “topped out” on the city’s pay scale, would get a 2.5 percent one-time stipend and employees who are on-call will see pay bumps from $25 to $75 per month.

The contract also provides for new additional hours of sick leave per month and increases the maximum number of sick leave hours to 1,000, up from the previous 816.

Employees also would have an additional day of personal leave — from three to four days — and have up to 10 hours off per month for union business.

Eddy said negotiations with the union were smooth but took a “little more time” than expected.

“It was just a little slow,” he said. “I’m not sure why, but it was probably just a matter of a new union and the employees, perhaps, not being familiar with how things go.”

Usually, Eddy said, city officials have their employment contracts hammered out before the beginning of the city’s new fiscal year.

“I always try to have them (the contract) before the new fiscal year starts,” he said. “It helps for budget reasons. But this time, we were a little behind. But it was just working out the kinks.”

Bryles agreed.

“It has been a very long road for all of us, but we are very pleased with the outcome,” he said.

The contract comes a few years after the passage of the Oklahoma Municipal Employees Collective Bargaining Act, which spawned four new municipal unions in Oklahoma.

“Studies have shown that collective bargaining significantly improves the quality of public services,” Bryles said. “Collective bargaining for public employees also increases productivity, improves stability and reduces turnover.”

Eddy said the contract changes would cost the city about $211,000. Moore’s municipal budget is more than $50 million.