The City of Fall River has agreed to pay former city sanitation workers a $245 thousand dollar settlement.
This announcement comes after a ten month long labor dispute which ended with members representing teamsters Local 251 ratifiing a new three (3) year contract. The settlement package was agreed upon last Friday, February 3rd after city workers had rejected a $225 thousand dollar settlement offer late last month.
According to a report in today’s Herald News, Teamsters’ Contract Coordinator David Robbins stated that in addition to the monetary settlement, the city agreed to increase staffing of teamster workers at the city’s Department of Community Maintenance. That means, Robbins says, that there is now a guarantee of forty (40) jobs. Currently, there are 35 positions available, so he adds that at least some of the workers will get back to work.
The teamsters agreed to a three year contract that gives them no wage hike in the first year, and a two percent increase in year two and three, as was the case with similar union contracts that had previously been settled with the city.
The sanitation worker problem started last July when Mayor Jasiel Correia II privatized the city trash collection program, which meant twenty-five (25) DCM workers lost their jobs. Their union went to bat for them with negotiations starting, then stalling before the case went to court.
Correia says he’s relieved that the matter has been settled, adding that the money will be paid out of the city’s now defunct sanitation enterprise. Robbins says he hoped this situation was a lesson learned for the mayor adding that money was wasted on legal costs that could have been used more wisely.
Photo courtesy: Fall River Herald News
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