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PEP Jul/Aug 2006
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Public Employee Press

Art Handlers — Local 1930’s newest members — win contract

A group of Art Handlers — the newest members of New York Public Library Guild Local 1930 — voted unanimously May 22 to approve their first contract.

The pact provides for an immediate 50 cent hourly pay increase and union benefits.

The agreement raises the hourly pay from $14 to $14.50 for the five full-time Art Handlers and three part-time Art Handlers covered by the pact on the ratification date.

The contract will expire upon the expiration date of the next collective bargaining accord between New York Public Library and the union.

Under the group’s first contract, full-timer Art Handlers will get the same benefits as other full-time library workers in Local 1930, including health insurance, welfare benefits (optical and podiatry care, as well as education and prescription drug coverage), a pension and paid vacations.

Joined in 2005
The part-time workers are eligible for welfare and pension benefits, but they will not be entitled to paid holidays during the contract.

The Art Handlers joined DC 37 in March 2005. The union then began pressing NYPL for an agreement to cover the new members.

The union’s negotiating team included Local 1930 President Lynn Taylor, Director of Research and Negotiations Dennis Sullivan, Assistant Director Nola R. Brooker and now-retired Assistant Director Michelle Green of the DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept., Rep Lisa Riccio of the Professional Division, and Art Handlers Tom Zimmerman and Ana Mari de Quesada.

“It felt great to be paid Memorial Day,” said Zimmerman, who less than two weeks after the contract ratification enjoyed a paid holiday for the first time during his five years as a full-time Art Handler at NYPL.

Union protection in an ugly era

“It was a long battle for this group of workers to win the right to union representation and to get a contract, which isn’t perfect but is something we plan to build upon in the future,” Taylor said.

“In an era when workers continue to take it on the chin, we are happy to have helped a group of people who had been treated like casual laborers become union members with benefits and the protection of a contact.”

 

 

 

 

 

 
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