Ravalli County is moving closer to a new contract agreement with the Laborers’ International Union of North America, Local #1696’s Road and Bridge Bargaining Unit, while discussions concerning call-out pay language are being finalized in a separate line of negotiations.
The Union’s last Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the county was in effect from July 1, 2018 to June 30 2021 when it expired. The two sides met on four occasions between June and November 2021, working out disagreements, and arrived at a Temporary Agreement that was ratified by the Union on November 9, 2021. The county took the TA and developed a final contract agreement that was forwarded to the Union on November 19.
At the same time, however, separate from these negotiations over the CBA, a settlement agreement was reached in a pending grievance concerning call-out compensation language, which is when an employee is called to work at a time that he or she is not normally scheduled to work. This resulted in a written settlement agreement providing dismissal of the laborer’s grievance with prejudice and that the parties would add the call-out pay issue to the Interest Based Bargaining IBB negotiations being mediated by David Luckey. The parties were unable to resolve the issue as part of the IBB negotiations. The issue was tabled and parties agreed to fulfill the settlement agreement, requiring negotiations over call-out pay, outside the IBB contract negotiations.
Discussions between the County Commissioners and Kim Rickard, Business Manager for Laborers’ Local #1696, at the March 17 meeting began over issues concerning the employees’ pension plan, however. Rickard asked about the status of employees on probationary status and whether they could join the pension plan.
The short answer, from the attorney representing the county, was that a new employee under probationary status is required to pay into the pension plan from his or her first day of work but is not eligible to join the pension plan until the probationary status is lifted and at that point all the past payments into the fund are credited to his or her account. He said this was something governed by state law and pension law and could not be negotiated as part of a CBA.
Both sides agreed that despite misunderstandings over the issue in which both parties were partially at fault, they would not let the issue of call-out pay or participation in the pension plan hold up agreement over the CBA any longer and that sentence was dropped from the contract language.
The issues concerning call-out pay were discussed and involved questions of how to distinguish call-out pay from extended time and what would qualify for timely notification for extended hours during snow removal season versus a call-out and other logistical problems trying to balance the needs and desires of management against the needs and desires of the employees. Both sides expressed optimism that the new language for call-out payments could be worked out satisfactorily.