Laura Glesby Photo
Janice Parker: "We do our jobs diligently, and we deserve this raise."
After alders approved a long-anticipated city parks and blue-collar labor union contract, Janice Parker slipped out of the legislative chambers, teary-eyed and grinning. The moment she passed through the door, she burst into a victorious dance.
“It’s about time! Oh God,” she said.
Parker, a city park maintenance caretaker, and her colleagues in UPSEU Local 424’s Bargaining Unit 128 have worked for three years without a contract, throughout a pandemic that prompted residents to spend more time in the city’s public parks than ever.
Those 75 city employees — which include workers in the Department of Parks and Public works as well as animal control officers and public safety mechanics — now have a new five-year agreement in place, thanks to a vote taken by the full Board of Alders at its latest in-person City Hall meeting last Monday.
The five-year Parks and Blue Collar contract retroactively applies from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2025. It raises the retirement age from 62 to 65, narrows the healthcare options for employees, and implements a new salary step system on top of annual raises.
Specifically, union members will receive a retroactive wage increase of 2 percent for 2020 – 2021, after which a new two-step salary scale will be implemented. Then, from July 2022 to July 2024, parks workers will receive an annual 3.5 percent raise.
By 2025, a union member at step 1 could make between $51,841 and $75,307, while a union member at step 2 could make between $57,217 and $84,887.
In a statement, the bargaining unit’s chief negotiator, Liz Ditman, wrote to the Independent, “UPSEU Local 424 Unit 128 is made up of extremely hardworking and dedicated employees and it was imperative that this be recognized in this contract in the form of fair wages. Our number one goal going to the table was to address how underpaid these employees have been and to work towards righting that wrong.”
She continued, “To the City’s credit, they heard us and worked with us toward achieving that goal. … While there is, of course, room for more improvement in the next round of negotiations, a lot of progress was made in this contract and we all are very pleased with the outcome.”
Alder Adam Marchand.
The contract’s provisions will cost the city $1.5 million over five years, as Westville Alder and Finance Committee Chair Adam Marchand told colleagues on Monday.
While the bargaining unit has six vacancies as of mid-March, the contract “would make the positions easier to fill,” Marchand said.
After he spoke, alders unanimously voted to approve the contract.
Outside the chambers on Monday, Parker praised the pay raises provided in the contract. “Some people can’t even pay for daycare,” she said. Over the pandemic, “Rent went up, cost of living went up, daycare went up. Our wages didn’t go up.”
“We were patient,” she said of her fellow union members. “We show up every day. We do our jobs diligently, and we deserve this raise.”
These parks employees are tasked with a thankless and impossible job. No matter how much you pay them or how many you hire, they cannot keep up with the filthy, sloppy habits of New Haven residents and those who are passing through. They need support from city ordinances on dumping and littering, plus a strong campaign to promote a clean city. Without a population who wants a clean place to live and play, New Haven will look like a tipped trash pail. I admire and thank all our parks and public works and animal control workers. You deserve every penny!!!