(MAYVILLE, NEW YORK) – After working under an expired contract for the past four years, Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)-represented Public Workers in Chautauqua County have ratified a new agreement, which now goes to the Republican Majority County Legislature for its approval on November 18th, Union President Steve Skidmore tells WNYLaborToday.com.

The new agreement features 2% Wage Increases in 2016 and 2017, and a retroactive 2% Wage Increase for 2015, Skidmore said.  It was ratified by a better than 3-to-1 vote (A total of 473 voted yes and 143 no).  In addition, he told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper that other improvements in the new deal include better avenues to fund the CSEA-represented County Workers’ Health Care Coverage and improvements made in the Grievance Procedure.

CSEA Local 807/Unit 6300 represents 950 Chautauqua County Public Workers who are employed in a variety of positions, from Highway to Social Services to Weights and Measures to Health Care and Probation.  Those Employees have been working under the conditions of an expired agreement for nearly the past four years.  

The new deal was not recommended by the CSEA Bargaining Unit, Skidmore said, but because the negotiation process took so long to produce a successor contract, many of CSEA Local 807/Unit 6300’s Members in the Southern Tier “wanted to vote on it anyway.”  However, the CSEA Bargaining Team remained “neutral” in its presentation to its Members, Skidmore said.  “It’s been a long time (working under an expired contract),” he told WNYLaborToday.com.  “Our Members are frustrated and tired.  They wanted to ‘move on.’”

A public rally that was held by CSEA Local 807/Unit 6300 in late September outside the Chautauqua County Office Building in Mayville to protest the lack of a new contract (Read WNYLaborToday.com’s September 22nd Labor News Coverage: CSEA Local 807/Unit 6300-Represented Public Employees In Chautauqua County Stand Ready To Picket & Rally In Mayville To Call Public Attention To Not Having A New Contract… Public Workers Have Been Operating Under Old Agreement That Expired Four Years Ago/CSEA Unit 6300 President Steve Skidmore Tells WNYLaborToday.com: “The Level Of Frustration Of Our Members Is ‘High,’ Many Don’t Feel They’re ‘Valued’) apparently “motivated” the County to resume its negotiations with CSEA, Skidmore tells WNYLaborToday.com.

“We went back to the table a day or so after the rally,” he said.  “It was the rally that got the County Executive (Vince Horrigan) to ‘move.’  (Horrigan) told me ‘he thought we were close’ on a new deal, but I told him ‘otherwise.’  Negotiations wound through pretty quickly (after that).  Both sides ‘moved’ (on several issues) and we took it back to our Membership.  We had three meetings across the County and more than three hundred came out.  Even those who weren’t for (the new contract) wanted to vote on it.”

Asked whether he believes the GOP Majority Chautauqua County Legislature will approve the new contract later this month, Skidmore replied: “I don’t know, but the County Executive said he could get it approved by the Legislature.”