Tentative
pact would help NDRI members climb out of pay-scale basement
By SHERRY HALBROOK
Tentative agreement has been reached in PEF’s contract negotiations with NDRI
(National Development and Research Inc.) in New York city.
PEF’s Executive Board voted in June to send the tentative pact to members of the
Aids Outreach Program (AOP) bargaining unit, one of two units PEF represents at
NDRI.
A meeting will be held in July for members of the AOP unit to review the terms
and vote on whether to accept the four-year agreement, which is retroactive to
July 1, 2005. It also has to go before NDRI’s board of directors for their
approval.
Marvin Moschel, PEF’s director of field services downstate, told PEF board
members the biggest obstacle they had to overcome was funding for raises.
“The entire Aids Outreach Program is funded through the state Office of Alcohol
and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) on a five-year basis, and it provided no
funding for raises,” Moschel said.
It’s a problem that has kept annual salaries below $30,000 and made these
members among the lowest paid in PEF, until now.
The new tentative agreement calls for NDRI and PEF to submit a request to the
OASAS field office for additional state aid to provide a 3 percent wage increase
for all employees retroactive to July 1, 2005, a second 3 percent pay raise
effective July 1, 2006. They also get 2.5 percent on October 1, 2006.
And, after that, the agreement calls for annual cost-of-living pay raises of at
least 3 percent, based on the national Urban Consumer Price Index for the prior
year.
If OASAS doesn’t come through with the money, the contract calls for reopening
the salary negotiations.
Additionally, NDRI will continue paying 90 percent of the cost of health
benefits premiums for individual employee coverage, and 75 percent of the
premium cost for family coverage. That includes prescription drug coverage under
the NYS Insurance Plan.
Moschel said PEF appealed to state Assembly Member Jeffrey Dinowitz (D-Bronx),
who assigned a member of his staff to work full-time with the union on the OASAS
funding issue until it was resolved.
Dinowitz chairs the Assembly Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse.
“We were very happy,” Moschel said. “The assemblyman did a great job.”
PEF Region 10 Coordinator Jennifer Faucher, who connected the team with Dinowitz,
thanked Moschel, PEF field representative Corrado Cotumaccio and PEF Division
501 Council Leader Gwendolyn Merritt “for an outstanding job that will make a
difference for these members.”
The Communicator July/Aug. '06
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