(NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK) – Negotiations on a new contract between Employees represented by the United Steelworkers (USW) Union and the Niagara Falls Water Board (NFWB) resumed today (Friday, March 17). 

The current agreement Workers continued to work under expired in 2009.  It has continued to be set in place pursuant to the 1982 amendment of New York State’s Taylor Law that is known as the Triborough Amendment, which mandates expired Labor Agreements with Public Employees cannot be altered until a new agreement is reached.

NFWB Director of Administrative Services James Perry, announced in a distributed press release that the long stalled contract negotiations between the Water Board and the USW Bargaining Unit would resume at 9 a.m. today.

While the provisions of the old contract have remained in place over the course of time, Perry expressed confidence in the distributed statement that “both sides are willing to work toward a new agreement that is fair and affordable.”

Perry will be joined at the bargaining table by James L. Briggs, who heads the local USW representing Water Board Employees, as well as other members from the NFWB and the USW.

Briggs, who serves as  Sub-District Director of the USW’s District 4 and is President of the Niagara-Orleans AFL-CIO Central Labor, said in the distributed statement that although the prior administration of the NFWB apparently saw little incentive for re-negotiation of an expired contract, he now sees “a new day of Labor-Management Relations at the NFWB where ‘reason and fairness can result in a final contract that meets the objectives of both parties.’”