Eau Claire workers maintain some union-earned benefits [The Leader-Telegram, Eau Claire, Wis.]

May 24--Some fringe benefits gained through decades of union negotiating with the city will remain and even differentiate workers covered under Eau Claire's revised employee handbook.

Sweeping changes to overtime rules and other policies are part of the draft handbook that would replace union contracts expiring July 1, but smaller fringe benefits were copied from individual work groups' prior labor negotiations.

"We're trying to maintain some consistency with what we have now," council President Kerry Kincaid said.

Benefits such as longevity pay, long-term disability insurance, educational incentives and life insurance coverage are included in the draft handbook presented to the City Council, which is slated for approval next month.

During a Thursday evening work session on the handbook, Councilman Dave Duax noted that the level of benefits varied among employee groups.

"With some of these disparities just being carried forward, how is that going to be discussed, handled, processed?" he said.

City human resources director Dale Peters responded that additional changes to the benefits would be considered each fall as part of the city manager's budget proposal.

In the next couple of years the city also intends to conduct a study comparing the wages and compensation for Eau Claire municipal workers with comparable jobs in the public and private sectors. That also could identify future benefit changes, he said, and it's well overdue because the city's most recent study was done in 1995.

Councilman David Strobel said he was surprised that study had not been done already and more changes proposed to fringe benefits that would bring the city's workforce closer into uniformity.

"I guess I'm maybe wondering why in the course of two years you haven't done that," he said, noting the city extended contracts in March 2011 to give itself until July 1, 2013, to update its employee handbook.

City Manager Russell Van Gompel replied that the switch away from union labor negotiations has been a major change, and the city's administration wanted to be reasonable with the workforce coping with that change.

"There's a lot of uncertainty and concern by the employees about changes happening in the workplace in the rules, regulations and process we're going through," he said.

Councilwoman Kathleen Mitchell said she's glad the city didn't put its workforce through the added stress of a compensation study while also rewriting the handbook.

"It was better not to do that until we make this leap into this nonunion environment," she said.

Whereas a Tuesday council work session focused mainly on overtime rule changes, Thursday's meeting had a wider range of topics included in the employee handbook.

City employees aired concerns during both of this week's work sessions, and elected officials said they're interested in more feedback before a handbook is approved.

"This door is still open. Now is the time to speak up," Councilwoman Catherine Emmanuelle said.

Council members said they plan to have a discussion of handbook proposals at Tuesday's meeting, but not vote on them at least until June 11.

Dowd can be reached at 715-833-9204, 800-236-7077 or andrew.dowd@ecpc.com.

___

(c)2013 the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.)

Visit the Leader-Telegram (Eau Claire, Wis.) at www.leadertelegram.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services