By Tom Grace
COOPERSTOWN _ Stalled contract negotiations between Otsego County and its largest union colored much of Wednesday's meeting of the Otsego County Board of Representatives.
As the meeting began, a large sign on a truck outside the county office building in Cooperstown declared ``Dedicated employees deserve living wages.'' The truck was parked there by Anthony Effner, a universal worker at Otsego Manor, who said earlier in the day that Civil Service Employees Association employees are tired of working without a contract.
The 10 a.m. meeting began with CSEA workers asking county board members why contract negotiations have taken so long.
``Why is it that every time we have a new contract, it seems to take a year to get started on negotiations?'' asked Gary Washburn, of the county's Information Technologies Department.
About 12 CESA workers crowded in the doorway to watch as Washburn and James Ganio, also an IT employee, urged the county board to make a new contract offer.
The number of workers at the meeting might have been much larger but for a memorandum sent to department heads Tuesday afternoon by Jennie Ghlia, the county's personnel director.
``There has been a `rumor' going around that several of the CSEA employees plan on taking their breaks tomorrow at 10 a.m. so that they can attend the board meeting and question the board about contract negotiations,'' she wrote.
``I have spoken with our legal counsel and it has been recommended that department heads not allow employees to deviate from their normally scheduled break time tomorrow,'' she continued in the memo.
Asked about the memorandum Wednesday, Ghlia said the counsel she was referring to is John Corcoran of Syracuse, the county's labor negotiator.
The county's approximately 500 CSEA workers have been working without a contract since Jan. 1, 2007.
Last fall, the two sides reached a tentative agreement to grant union members a five-year contract with a 5 percent raise this year and 3 percent raises for 2009, 2010 and 2111. There would have been no raise for 2007, although employees would have been given retroactive bonuses of $300.
In October, however, the proposal was rejected by union members.
A negotiating session in March was unproductive, but later this month, Kevin Flanigan of the state Public Employment Relations Board is scheduled to meet with union negotiators to see if further bargaining sessions might bring progress.
Alternatively, Corcoran has said, the county is ready to have a state fact-finder appointed to offer his or her written assessment of how to resolve the impasse.
Board rejects raise; timing cited
As Wednesday's meeting progressed, the state of negotiations pervaded other issues. When county Treasurer Myrna Thayne requested that Deputy Treasurer Carol McGovern's salary be raised from about $36,000 to $40,000 a year, Rep. Stephen Fournier, R-Milford, objected because of the timing, noting the board had not acted on other requests for raises earlier this year.
Rep. Keith McCarty, R-Springfield, said, ``I'm not arguing a raise isn't deserved, but I don't think now is the time to do it. It's not fair to make some people wait a year and a half for a raise when they all think they deserve it.''
Rep. Scott Harrington, R-Oneonta, argued against making an exception and granting the raise, saying he was troubled by the board's ``lack of consistency,'' a point that Rep. Cathy Rothenberger, D-Oneonta, agreed with.
Thayne noted that her department has operated with just one deputy treasurer since the first of the year, after Joseph Charity resigned.
``We've gone from 14 to 11 employees,'' she said. ``I'm not trying to build an empire here, but I would like to bring this department into the 21st century.''
Ultimately, however, the board rejected the request by a weighted vote of 3,390 to 2,777, with Reps. Kathy Clark, R-Otego; Richard Murphy, D-Oneonta; Marti Stayton, D-Oneonta; Katherine Stuligross, D-Oneonta; Fournier, Rothenberger, McCarty and Harrington voting against it.
