U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, U.S. Rep, Rosa DeLauro and State Treasurer Erick Russell join the picket. Regional Water Authority (RWA) employees picketed outside the agency’s Sargent Drive headquarters Thursday afternoon while chanting “beep beep, the water authority is cheap!”, accusing m anagement of sidestepping contract talks in favor of arbitration. The roughly 126 members of United Steelworkers Local 12160 — water treatment workers, control room operators, field crews, and customer service and clerical staff — have been working without a contract since April. “We really haven’t bargained in years,” said union President Wanda Howard, who has worked in the authority’s customer service department for 37 years. “It’s gone totally, completely, almost always to arbitration.” In her remarks, Howard listed the issues on the table during the current contract negotiations: mandatory overtime, high health care premiums, low raises, work being done by non-union employees, and what she described as the authority’s refusal to bargain over the use of artificial intelligence. She also said the authority has already begun implementing some changes still under negotiation, “unilaterally,” before completing the bargaining process. Howard said an arbitrator has decided the union’s last three contracts. Under binding arbitration, an outside arbitrator imposes the contract’s terms, and members never vote on a deal. The union wants the authority to negotiate a package members can vote on, something Howard said the two sides can still do while arbitration proceeds. Arbitration is “costly for the union and it’s costly for the company,” she said. “And whenever it’s costly for the company, it’s also costly for the ratepayers.” John Cronkitis, who has worked in the authority’s distribution department for 49 years, said the union hasn’t held a ratification vote in more than a decade. This time, he said, the authority pursued arbitration “after only our second bargaining meeting and just two and a half mediation sessions.” “How can we reach a fair agreement when we have barely had the opportunity to work through our differences?” he asked. Union Vice President Pierre Lafranco, who has worked in distribution for nine years and has a young daughter, pointed to one example: while health benefits are still being negotiated, he said, workers were notified that their health savings account contributions would shift from yearly to weekly.  “Our benefits, our time, and our well-being should not be treated as unimportant,” he said. U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and State Treasurer Erick Russell joined the water workers for their picket on Thursday. DeLauro said the workers deserve “dignity and the respect for the essential work that they do.” She said they serve 432,000 people in 15 municipalities, and deserve “fair wages, decent work standards, affordable health care, and the ability to participate in the decisions of the company.” Blumenthal said he was speaking as a customer. “I want a fair contract. I want fair wages. I want fair overtime. I want health care. I want safeguards on AI,” he said. Russell, a long time New Haven resident, said he wished the workers weren’t having to show this sign of force and that the authority was instead “coming to the table to have real conversations.”  Ed Hawthorne, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, went further: “I’ve never seen a company like this before that just flat out refuses to negotiate.” State Rep. Josh Elliott of Hamden said the workers’ demands are “totally fair,” and that the state shouldn’t put its “thumb on the scale” in the negotiations. In a written statement to the Independent, RWA spokesperson Kevin Watsey said that the authority “remains committed to reaching a union contract that is fair to our employees and fair to our customers,” but that the two sides have not yet reached terms that achieve that balance. Watsey said the authority has “actively participated in numerous negotiation sessions” since February, including mediation with a state mediator, but that “significant differences on key issues remained unresolved.” The statement said Connecticut law provides for arbitration to settle those issues, and that hearings are scheduled to begin in December. “As the parties proceed with that process, the RWA remains hopeful that more issues can be resolved,” Watsey’s statement said. Watsey also noted that under state law, “there is no risk of a work stoppage,” and service will continue without interruption. The statement did not address the union’s claims about changes to health benefits or bargaining over artificial intelligence. Howard said the workers’ fight extends beyond their own paychecks: to the families, churches, and community groups they support. “If we hurt,” she said, “they hurt.” “Beep beep, the water authority is cheap!” Regional Water Authority at 90 Sargent Drive in New Havent, CT. The post Water Workers Picket As Arbitration Looms appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less