North New Castle News

City of Wilmington issued the following announcement on Dec. 13.

Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki and AFSCME Local 1102 President Steve Colon today signed a new four-year labor contract covering 194 of the City’s white-collar employees. The new collective bargaining agreement is retroactive to the end of the currently expired Local 1102 contract and will therefore be effective from July 1, 2018 through June 30 of 2022. The agreement provides union members with a 2% cost-of-living wage increase for Fiscal Years 2020, 2021 and 2022. The City will also provide current regular Local 1102 employees, who are employed when the agreement is approved by the Mayor and City Council, with a $1,250 one-time signing bonus payment.

Mayor Purzycki and Union President Colon signed the contract during a ceremony this morning in the Mayor’s Office. Members of Local 1102 ratified the new contract at a meeting in October. The Mayor thanked the members of Local 1102 for approving the new contract and for working with the City on health care changes that are intended to control costs and keep employees healthy. He also thanked the City’s negotiating team, led by the Department of Human Resources with support from the Law Department and the Office of Management and Budget, for their collaborative efforts to bring about this labor settlement.

“This City is nothing more or less than the work of our employees,” said Mayor Purzycki. “We feel so very good about the members of this union, and I hope you feel as good about working for the City of Wilmington. Someday we can look back and be very, very proud of the work we got done together, and I hope we got to a place where everybody feels that this has been fair.”

Local 1102 union members’ healthcare employee contributions, which held steady at either 4%, 5% or 6% since Fiscal Year 2017, will change beginning January 1, 2020, when the annual contribution will increase to 10% for those who complete annual physicals and appropriate age/gender health screenings, while those who don’t follow health guidelines will pay 12%. In addition to mandatory annual physical and age/gender specific lab screenings in order to be eligible for health premium discounts, the new agreement also increases the co-pay for emergency room visits to $150 (up from $50) and requires mandatory generic drug prescriptions.

Original source can be found here.

Source: City of Wilmington