By David Skolnick

skolnick@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

The city’s wastewater union soundly rejected a three-year contract proposal with annual raises and additional money for its members.

“It was shot down 66 to 2,” said Clifton Hardin, president of the 74-member Youngstown Wastewater Employees Local 725.

Hardin said he hopes to return to the bargaining table with city officials for further negotiations.

He declined to comment on why his membership opposed the contract even though the union’s negotiating team supported it enough to bring it to a vote.

“The negotiations went pretty quickly,” said Mayor John A. McNally. “You would hope anytime you get a tentative agreement it will be approved by the union. But when you get a vote like this, it’s obvious not everyone on the negotiating team voted for it.”

McNally wants to return to the bargaining table soon “so we can meet with their team and discuss their concerns with the contract.”

If not, the two sides would next go to nonbinding fact-finding, McNally said.

The union’s contract with the city expired Dec. 31, 2013. Wastewater employees, on average, earn about $45,000 to $52,000 annually in salary.

The proposed three-year deal would have given union members a 1 percent raise, effective when the deal is ratified, and then 1.5 percent in 2015 and 1 percent in 2016. Those are the same raises given to the city’s other unions since McNally became mayor Jan. 1.

The proposed contract also increased annual longevity pay — money given for each year an employee works for the city — from $62 for each year of service to $65 to be the similar amount given to most other bargaining units, and increased the boot allowance for eligible members from $85 a year to $114. Employees would have been able to forgo the boot allowance in one year and receive $228 the next year under the rejected deal.

Most other unions have voted in favor of its contracts, which gave them pay raises for the first time in four years.

The only other union to reject the proposal is the 138-member International Association of Firefighters Local 312, which primarily objects to lifting health-care premium caps during the life of the contract — also something other unions in the city accepted in new deals.

Like the firefighters’ union, the caps in the wastewater contract proposal lifted the caps effective May 1, 2016.

The monthly insurance caps are $100 for single coverage and $200 for family coverage.

The city’s health-insurance policy costs $666 a month for single coverage and $1,678 a month for family coverage. City employees pay 10 percent of that amount — $66.60 for single and $167.80 for family per month.