Tentative agreement reached on NDRI research unit pact
By SHERRY HALBROOK
The PEF Contract Team at NDRI in New York city may have set a new PEF record by reaching tentative-agreement with management less than four weeks after bargaining talks began May 11.
PEF represents more than 90 employees at NDRI (National Development and Research Institutes Inc.) with approximately 75 in the Research Unit affected by this agreement. Their current contract expired June 30.
The four-year pact would provide annual pay raises of 3 percent.
NDRI would pay 90 percent of the health-care premiums for individual employees and 75 percent of the premiums for families. The employer would also continue to contribute 12 percent of salary to its employees’ retirement annuities.
NDRI would establish flexible spending accounts for members who want to set aside part of their pre-tax pay to cover out-of-pocket medical and/or dependent care expenses.
The PEF Executive Board must review and vote on whether to send the tentative agreement to the members for a vote. The board has been sent copies of the tentative agreement and will vote by mail. Those ballots will be counted July 7, and if it’s approved the agreement would go to NDRI members for ratification in July.
Marvin Moschel, PEF’s new director of field services downstate and chief negotiator for this contract, said NDRI’s desire to settle the contract quickly and avoid the need to calculate a lot of retroactive pay was a key factor in reaching a tentative agreement in just three bargaining sessions.
The quick result belied some tough bargaining, however.
“Health benefits was a major issue of contention,” Moschel said, “because the employees’ portion of the premiums increased during the last contract without any negotiation. NDRI did not even inform the union that this was going to happen.
“Despite very strong opposition from management, the union has won a guarantee now that, no matter what the insurance plan does, NDRI will pay 90 percent of the premium for individuals and 75 percent for families and no changes would be made in the cost of the plan without negotiating with the union,” he said.
Moschel added that NDRI had created new job titles and kept them out of the bargaining unit — leaving them unrepresented by the union.
“After some tough negotiation, NDRI agreed to give us a list of all employees every three months and then resolve any disputes about new titles in labor-management meetings. The tentative agreement requires NDRI to inform PEF before creating any new titles,” he said.
“Our contract team worked really well together,” said PEF Executive Board member and Division 500 Council Leader Julie O’Brien, who chaired the contract team.
In addition to O’Brien, the contract team included Una Cruz, Crystal Brown, Vickie Zaleski, Lisa McCullough and Charles Small. PEF field representative Carlos Arroyo and associate counsel Lisa Newmark also participated.
PEF expects to begin contract negotiations soon for its members in the AIDS Outreach Program (AOP)) Unit at NDRI. However, the union cannot assume the Research Unit contract would be a model for the AOP Unit agreement.
“The two units have different funding sources,” Arroyo said. “NDRI research is funded primarily through federal grants. The AIDS outreach funding is mainly from the state Office of Substance Abuse Services.”
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