AUBURN — The Androscoggin County Commission has called a special meeting for Wednesday, May 25, to again discuss a contract for the county workers’ union.
The contract will be the only item on the agenda for the meeting, scheduled for 5:15 p.m. at the Androscoggin County Courthouse.
Commissioner Sally Christner and others are seeking another vote, believing the action commissioners took last week on the contract was illegal.
“I’d like to redo it and make it right,” Christner said.
Last week, the commission voted 4-3 to rip up the contract on the table and offer employees a one-year deal for 2016.
Members of the Androscoggin County Employees Association have worked without a contract or a raise since 2012.
“We need to make it right for the sake of our employees, who have been waiting for a long time for a contract,” Commissioner Alfreda Fournier said.
The original motion, made by Christner, would have awarded employees the financial terms of the three-year contract for 2012-15. But the new proposal, offered as an amendment, had nothing to do with her motion, Christner said.
Commissioners should have voted for or against her motion before taking up a new contract for 2016.
Dozens of employees attended last week’s meeting and pleaded with the commissioners to ratify the three-year contract that’s been in dispute since 2012. Commissioner Randall Greenwood proposed throwing away the former deal and offered a new one-year contract for 2016.
The association represents all non-elected and non-salaried law enforcement employees, who number about 75. They include patrol, jail, and dispatch staff.
The new deal would award current employees with their one- and three-year step increases that they have been owed, but there would be no back pay.
The issue split the commissioners like no other issue since the board expanded from three members to seven at the beginning of 2015. Beth Bell, Elaine Makas and Matthew Roy supported the new proposal by Greenwood, while Chairman Ronald Chicoine, Christner and Fournier favored the original three-year contract.
“I don’t understand,” Christner said. “We got everything we want. The employees come in and extend an olive branch, and we move the bar on them. How disgraceful. It’s so wrong.”
The new proposal came after a judge recently ruled in favor of the county and reversed an arbitration panel’s 2-1 decision that sided with the union. The decision changed the way employees could protest disciplinary actions and firings.
“There ‘s been a lot of wheeling and dealing,” Fournier said. “I don’t understand why someone would challenge a binding arbitration.”
“I’ve been fighting for them, fighting for them in executive meetings, fighting for them wherever I can,” Christner said. “It’s such poor leadership (on our part) that they don’t have a contract.”
Makas supports revisiting the matter. She has requested additional financial information from County Treasurer Robert Poulin on how much the three-year contract would cost the county to implement.
“I feel uncomfortable making decisions without having all of the information,” Makas said. “I care about our employees, but I also care about our taxpayers.”
The money in Greenwood’s proposal would set a $200,000 cap. Any money left over after the step increases are paid would be divided among the current employees.
Fournier said she spent several hours Monday at the courthouse researching the money issue.
“What we’re trying to do is to do right by our employees,” Fournier said. “We have the money to make it right.”
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