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Update: Pasco approves new 3-year contract with unionized workers

 
West Pasco Government Center, where commissioners met Tuesday morning.  ALICE HERDEN | Special to the Times
West Pasco Government Center, where commissioners met Tuesday morning. ALICE HERDEN | Special to the Times
Published Aug. 21, 2018

NEW PORT RICHEY — After 14 months of bargaining and one declared impasse, Pasco County's unionized workers have approved a new three-year contract agreement by an overwhelming margin.

Pasco commissioners ratified the agreement without comment Tuesday morning.

It provides lump-sum $1,200 payments to 1,145 employees, wage adjustments for the remainder of the current fiscal year and raises effective Oct. 1 that will mirror the salary increases for non-union employees.

Commissioners said previously they plan to budget 4 percent increases for the coming fiscal year, with 2 percent given as a cost of living adjustment and up to 2 percent based on merit.

The new contract with Teamsters Local 79 replaces an agreement that expired Sept. 30, 2017, and will be in effect until 2020. It includes a provision to reopen wage negotiations for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

"After so many months of negotiating the contract, it is certainly nice to finally have it settled,'' said Barbara Hitzemann, Pasco's human resources director.

"We reached some middle ground regarding past practices, and it was overwhelmingly ratified by a majority of those who cast ballots,'' the union's chief negotiator, John Sholtes, Teamsters Local 79 business agent, said via e-mail.

Workers ratified the contract by a 632-127 margin during three days of voting earlier this month. The county and union reached the agreement July 10, shortly after Pasco County declared an impasse. By law, the two sides are required to continue bargaining during an impasse.

The two sides had been far apart on wage and other issues. The union proposed annual 4-percent, across-the-board salary increases for the current year and for the 2019 and 2020 budgets, as well as retroactive pay calculated on the individual worker's salary. Merit pay, the union argued, perpetuates favoritism.

In the end, the union essentially agreed to every aspect of the county's contract offer, which also includes language governing paid time off and overtime assignments.

"Through this whole process, as commissioners, we can't get involved in it,'' Commission Chairman Mike Wells Jr. said Monday. "But I've been a proponent from year one that every employee gets an average raise of 4 percent. And that's happening. I'm glad to see them work together for our employees' sake, because they deserve it.''

The contract covers 1,145 county employees, including librarians, bus drivers, emergency dispatchers and workers in fleet maintenance, utilities and elsewhere. The bargaining unit has 230 dues-paying members.

County workers voted to unionize in 2010 amid lay-offs triggered by budgets constrained by dwindling property tax revenue from voter-approved tax exemptions and the bursting real estate bubble. The two sides didn't reach an agreement on their first contract until 2014, after more than three years of bargaining.

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Reach C.T. Bowen at ctbowen@tampabay.com or (813) 435-7306. Follow @CTBowen2

RELATED: Pasco, union far apart on contract talks.