Officials, Teamsters reach new contract

The guards won't start paying for their health care until 2008.
By MARY GRZEBIENIAK
VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT
MERCER, Pa. -- Mercer County Jail guards will receive raises and be required to contribute to their health plan in the future under the new contract reached with the county after more than a year of negotiating.
At its meeting Wednesday, the Mercer County Prison Board unanimously recommended the county commissioners give final approval to the three-year contract between the county and Teamsters Local 250, which represents about 60 jail guards.
Commissioners plan to approve the contract at their meeting today.
Under terms of the new pact, jail guards will receive a 38-cent-per-hour raise retroactive to Jan. 1, 2006, an additional 42 cents hourly effective Jan. 1 this year and 48 more cents Jan. 1, 2008.
Under the old contract, hourly rates ranged from 11.76 for new hires to 16.61 for guards with four years' experience.
Health care
The guards will be required to make contributions to their health-care costs although their contribution will not start until 2008 at the earliest and their contribution will be less than the 10 percent the county's other unions already pay.
The agreement also says the guards will pay 20 percent of the annual increase in the cost of such insurance coverage if it rises above 2007 benchmark rates. The 2007 rates range from 377 per month for an individual to 1,136 for a family. The Teamsters are the only county employee union in which its members are not making a contribution to health care.
Commissioner Brian Beader said the county would have preferred the guards be required to make a health-care contribution more in line with the 10 percent the rest of county unions are making, but the county could not get that provision under binding arbitration.
The old contract expired Dec. 31, 2005, and contract negotiations went to binding arbitration in December 2006. Arbitrators filed their decision on the new pact Feb. 25 of this year.