CONNEAUT —
City Manager Tim Eggleston will try a new approach to contract negotiations with the city’s municipal unions to help expedite the process.
Eggleston said recently he plans to gather all the union representatives in one room on Thursday to discuss issues common to each bargaining unit, such as vacation and sick time and some medical benefit issues. Later, he will meet individually with the different unions to talk about more specific matters.
The first group session could come this week. Other communities, including Ashtabula, have used the group approach with some success, Eggleston said.
Eggleston is optimistic the new approach will save some time.
“We’ll give it a whirl,” he said. “This way we don’t rehash all the same things. It’s pretty much going to be equal across the board.”
Eggleston hopes to secure three-year contracts from each of the unions.
“Over three years I don’t foresee that much of a change (in the city’s economic situation),” he said. “Our goal is to retain jobs.”
Three-year contracts with the city’s safety departments (police officers and firefighters), service workers and dispatchers expire at the end of the year. Eggleston last week held a very preliminary meeting with representatives for International Association of Fire Fighters Local 651, he said.
The last time the city talked contracts, in 2009, officials turned much of the task over to an attorney and professional negotiator. The experience ultimately proved controversial, costing more than $200,000 in fees that outraged City Council members. This time, the city will keep the work in-house, Eggleston said.
Representing the city will be Eggleston, Law Director David Schroeder, Finance Director John Williams and — depending on which union is up to bat — department supervisors, the city manager said.
The contracts will be the first for Eggleston as a city manager, who came to Conneaut in mid-summer 2011. He has assisted negotiations and dealt with unions in the Michigan communities where he has worked.
“It will be interesting,” Eggleston said.
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