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Politics & Government

Contracts for Court Workers, Cedarbrook Staff Approved

Some Lehigh County commissioners object, saying wages should be frozen.

Lehigh County commissioners Wednesday approved three-year contracts with 2-3 percent raises for court employees and Cedarbrook nurses aides and maintenance workers but not before dissenters called for a wage freeze. 

One contract covers 416 full-time and 131 part-time employees represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers union at Cedarbrook, the county’s nursing home with facilities in South Whitehall and Fountain Hill. The other covers 190 full-time and 84 part-time court workers represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.

Supporters on the board of commissioners said the pacts break the tradition of awarding double raises to veteran employees and require both groups to pay 17-20 percent of their health care. The Cedarbrook contract also reduces the number of sick days staff can accrue, which will cut overtime costs for subs.

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“This addresses the systemic problems that we talk about within the budget of the county,” said Commissioner Chairman Dean Browning. “We have had a system in place where employees get two increases a year:  a general increase and a step increase … This is an opportunity for us to break the cycle of roughly half of our employees receiving two increases a year.” 

Commissioners who voted against the contracts said they wanted a wage freeze because many county taxpayers in the private sector weren’t getting raises and some had lost their jobs.

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“The economy is in bad shape and we do not see it turning the corner,” said Commissioner Percy Dougherty. “I cannot agree to say, ‘things are going to be rosier next year, let’s go out and give everybody a pay increase.’”

Commissioner William Hansell drew applause from the crowd of mostly county employees when he said, “I don’t think public employees deserve to be treated as the worst or the poorest in this economy. What [wage freeze advocates] are saying is you’re not worth two cents because a 2 percent increase is two cents on the dollar." 

He said the county administration has already budgeted the money for the raises so they won’t require another tax hike.

Commissioner Glenn Eckhart responded that county taxpayers are still suffering from job losses and home foreclosures. “The reality is the person who lost their job and are losing their home doesn’t have the two cents,” he said.

Tom Muller, county director of administration, disputed the notion that most private sector employees aren’t getting raises this year. He quoted from a story in Human Resources Executive Online that said 98 percent of the 1,110 companies polled planned to give pay raises this year averaging between 2.5 percent and 3 percent. That’s a stark contrast to 2010 when 13 percent of companies surveyed froze wages and 2009 when 31 percent did.

The court employees contract passed 6-3 with Republicans Dougherty, Eckhart and Tom Creighton voting against it.

Only Eckhart switched sides for the Cedarbrook contract, saying  those wages were paid largely by Medicare and Medicaid money and so would not drain Lehigh County property tax revenue. That contract passed 7-2.

Following the meeting, Wendell Young, president of the United  Food and Commercial Workers union Local 1776, said his members understood going into negotiations that the economy was too weak to expect the double raises of the last contract. “These are tough times,” Young said. “These are rather modest increases and some of it is going to be absorbed by off setting increases in health care costs.”

Young said wage freezes aren’t going to boost the economy. “I don’t think the answer to helping our economy is a race to the bottom,” he said.

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