The members of the Lake Oswego Municipal Employees Association that make up Oregon AFSCME Local 1546 have recently ratified a new three-year contract. Local 1546 represents about 160 Lake Oswego city workers.

 

AFSCME members will get a 2.9 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) retroactive to July 1, 2012. The contract also includes another COLA of between 2 and 4 percent (based on the area consumer price index) on July 1, 2013, and a wage re-opener on July 1, 2014.

 

"The employees were very vocal and active in this contract campaign," said Council 75 Staff Representative Stacy Chamberlain. "We staged a big rally in November and I believe that was a key to the settlement — management saw that the workers were united behind their bargaining team."

 

In addition to wages, Chamberlain listed other contract highlights as follows:

 

• Temporary employees — Improved definition and limits on use.

 

• Filling shifts at the city library — New language establishes a process for bidding on open shifts.

 

• Sick leave — Expanded family leave to part-time employees that otherwise wouldn't qualify; created a sick leave bank; expanded the definition of who sick leave can be used to care for.

 

• Layoff — Expanded language, expands ability for someone to bump into any position they are qualified for instead of only a position they previously held; allows recalled employees to have sick leave returned and to be placed on the wage step the person would have been on had the person not been laid off; other language clean-up.

 

• Health insurance — Employees to pay 7 percent of the premium beginning Jan. 1, 2013, that percentage bumps up to 9 percent on Jan. 1, 2014, with a re-opener on the subject July 1, 2014.

 

• Re-opener on wages and health insurance — The union can pick two articles to open for negotiations. 

 

In addition to Chamberlain, the Local 1546 Bargaining Team included Scott Symer, Barb Dillinger, Bob Burgeson, Gabrielle Hoffman, Patricia Smith and Pat Peterson.