COOPERSTOWN _ What's a fair wage for Otsego County's CSEA workers?
One answer is a salary matching that of neighboring Delaware County's workers, according to a union spokesman.
Management and Otsego's 600 or so union members have been negotiating for nearly 18 months, on and off, without coming to an agreement.
Signs supporting the union dot roads in the county, and earlier this month, union members demonstrated outside the county office building in Cooperstown and addressed board members inside, asking for more money.
Otsego County Board Chairman James Powers, R-Butternuts, said he and his peers are listening, but they want to negotiate in formal sessions, not at meetings or "in the newspaper."
As neither side has blinked, negotiations will soon move to fact-finding _ a process that calls for an unaligned labor expert, chosen by the state Public Employment Relations Board, to offer a nonbinding contract solution.
Should this step not produce an agreement, the county board would be empowered to dictate a one-year contract, possibly without a pay increase.
And then, labor and management would once again begin contract talks.
Last fall, negotiators for both sides hammered out a tentative agreement that would have given workers a $300 bonus for 2007, a 5 percent raise this year, and 3 percent raises in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
However, rank-and-file members turned down the offer by a margin of about 10-to-one, ``a clear and decisive message'' sent to the county Board of Representatives, according to John Imperato, a county dispatcher and president of CSEA Unit 8100.
The message was received, and a new board took office this year, but negotiations since then have produced no breakthrough, according to both sides.
Mark Kotzin, CSEA spokesman, said Otsego County's union members are discouraged ``because they are among the lowest-paid county workers in the state and they feel they are not being listened to. These people need a living wage.'' Only in neighboring Chenango County are municipal workers paid so little, he said.
However, CSEA members there are not demonstrating for more money and better benefits.
``Chenango is among our quieter units,'' said Kotzin, and he could not explain the outwardly different attitudes between workers in Norwich and Cooperstown.
A survey of some job titles indicates that county workers in Otsego and Chenango counties are paid similar wages, amounts often lagging the standard in adjoining Delaware County.
For example, account clerk/typists start at $21,215 in Otsego, $20,241 in Chenango, and $24,537 in Delaware. Entry-level workers at departments of social services are paid $22,147 in Otsego, $23,068 in Chenango, and $25,925 in Delaware. New hires as laborers in highway departments are paid $22,529 in Otsego, $22,318 in Chenango and $26,437 in Delaware, according to personnel departments in the counties.
Kotzin said Otsego's workers are seeking wages comparable to Delaware's, which he said would be enough money to ride out the rising tide of food and fuel prices.
``It would actually save Otsego County money if wages were higher, because the county wouldn't keep training workers, then losing them to places where wages are higher,'' Kotzin said.
Powers said salary increases beyond what the county has offered would likely translate into higher property taxes _ ``exactly what we don't want to do in the middle of recession.'' Powers also noted that many Otsego County workers log fewer hours than their counterparts in neighboring counties.
``We're the only county with summer hours, where in a lot of jobs, you get out early in July and August,'' he said. ``We've had them for decades, but there really is no reason anymore.''
Years ago, before buildings were air-conditioned and when a lot of people still worked part-time on farms, the county offered reduced summer hours as part of a labor contract, he said.
``People don't want to give up summer hours, and I don't blame them; I'd like to be done early, too,'' Powers said. ``But it can make our salaries seem lower than they are.''
Kotzin said he knew of no other county work force with summer hours, although he was uncertain whether the 30-hour summer work week was considered negotiable by the CSEA team.
According to personnel offices, a full work week in Otsego County is 35 hours during most of the year and 30 hours in much of July and August. In Chenango County, the work week is 37.5 hours, and it is 35 hours in Delaware County. Some jobs, such as highway worker and dispatcher, call for 40-hour work weeks in all three counties, and there are other exceptions.
Kotzin said the rising cost of health care is also hurting CSEA members, who typically pay 20 percent of the cost of their premiums. The union supports a ``single-payer'' solution to the nation's health-care cost crisis, as well as a number of reforms, such as allowing the purchase of lower-priced prescriptions from other nations.
``We support a national plan, but it isn't fair that in Otsego County our workers have to subsidize the health-care costs of their managers,'' he said.
Board members and department heads typically pay 5 percent of the cost of their premiums, a benefit that has been deemed a recruiting tool by previous boards.
Rep. Betty Anne Schwerd, R-Burlington, was endorsed by the CSEA last year as she ran for re-election and said Tuesday that the labor-board standoff is painful to watch.
``I think our workers need to be listened to and treated with respect,'' she said.
Schwerd, a member of the county's Administration Committee, said board members are exploring options to offer health-care choices at a reduced cost, including seeking competition to the county-run plan from private insurers.
``We hope this is something that can help,'' she said.
