Bangor City Employees (AFSCME 926) Call on City to Provide Benefit Improvements for All Workers

PHOTO: Bangor city workers at a Council meeting at City Hall on Aug. 26.

About fifty Bangor city employees with AFSCME Local 926 turned out at a Bangor City Council meeting on August 26 to call on the city to address inequities in its recent awarding of benefits to city workers. Recently, the city moved all levels of vacation up one week for non-union city employees to improve recruitment and retention, but not unionized workers. After the union pushed back and demanded that management negotiate this benefit with unionized workers, management agreed to open the contracts  only if the workers were willing to give up their comp time in exchange for the vacation time.

In a letter that was read to the City Council, Local 926 President Chris Nile said that the decision has “has caused a significant decrease in the morale of city employees.”

"Decreasing the benefits of City employees will not help with recruitment or retention, in fact it will defeat the intended purpose," he said. "We ask that the City Council extend the increase in benefits to all City employees, not just non union, without removing other benefits from its employees."

The union presented a petition signed by members of Local 926, which represents over 100 employees, including municipal workers, airport customer service representative, airport operations officers, airport ramp attendants, airport dispatchers, airport security, airport mechanics, and airfield maintenance. The city has yet to come back with a better offer and the workers intend to return to the council to make their demands heard again in the coming weeks.