The IBEW 1245 members in the Electric and Maintenance Units at the City of Redding voted to approve new agreements in late January. The final vote tally for the Electric unit ratification was 40-13, and the Maintenance unit voted 67-39 to ratify their agreement.
The Electric agreement will be in effect until September of 2017. Members will see a 5% increase effective Jan 31, 2016, followed by a 4.5% increase in July of 2016, and a 4.5% increase in January of 2017. The union also secured an additional 1% for seven classifications at the Redding Power Plant, as well as improvements to the boot allowance. The union and city agreed to address other ongoing concerns surrounding the meals language and the Working Foreman (line) testing requirement in ad hoc negotiations.
The Maintenance agreement will also be in effect until September of 2017. Members will see a 4% increase effective Jan. 31, 2016, followed by 3.5% in January of 2017. The union also secured improvements to the mechanics’ tool allowance, and agreed to ad hoc negotiations to discuss the qualifications for the Working Supervisor classification. The City wished to remove it from the Pre-Bid process (which is driven by seniority) and simply fill vacant positions at their discretion, but the union wanted to take it off the table. We compromised by agreeing to address it in ad hoc.
For those Electric and Maintenance members who have the PARS benefit (supplemental retirement benefits) we agreed that upon approval of this agreement by City Council (or such later date as determined by the City), members will receive notice of their option to either continue to maintain the PARS by picking up the normal cost, which is currently set at 3.99% for Electric and 3.86% for Maintenance (pre-tax), or freeze any further accrual of the benefit. Unfortunately, the PARS benefit amounts to a significant unfunded liability for the City — over 14% of base wage for Maintenance and 15% for Electric — and the cost made any discussion around wages almost impossible, so we were put in a position of having to deal with it at the table in order to move forward with negotiations.
Special thanks to the members of the bargaining committees:
Maintenance Bargaining Committee
- Dominic McCurtain
- Randy Amaral
- Chris Fleming
- John Moore
- Dave Williams
- Darryl Hughart
Electric Bargaining Committee
- Ben Goehring
- Jeff Torres
- Paul Snyder
- Ken Nachman
- Rob Barber
–Sheila Lawton, IBEW 1245 Business Rep