Dear Brothers and Sisters:
Many of you noticed that you received a smaller paycheck on September 5th than you usually get. While we disagree with the County’s reason for taking away our money, it is something we had been anticipating for at least four weeks. On August 3, 2008, I sent an email burst to all members on the local’s list (you can get on this list by sending an email to board@cookcountypd.org with your name and worksite) alerting them to the status of the 1% situation. Here is the content of the email burst:
Dear Sisters and Brothers:
I wanted to send this message to you in a e-mail, as opposed to posting it on the website, because I thought it would be a more appropriate method. I received news last week at the convention from Peter Schmaltz, regional director for Council 31 and one of the main men who negotiated our last contract. The news is not good. It is about the AFSCME pay plan which everyone over step three has been receiving since the second paycheck in June. This you will recall was an extra one percent that was to be added (to all steps after step three in Grades two three and four) in addition to the 2.75% pay increase that we received in June of this year. The county and the local had agreed at the table on this, partly as a way to offset the increase in the health care contributions, but last year, the County was pretending they didn’t know what we were talking about. Then in June, after we began to look for a date for arbitration over the issue, our paychecks showed that they followed the agreement. Everything seemed fine in July, but then I received news from Peter Schmaltz that the County is going to take the one percent away from us and that we will have to arbitrate the issue anyway.
So, there is a good chance that your check may look different this week. Your salary may be one percent less then the last pay period. Please check your pay stub for any disparity. Be mindful that we are trying to speed up the arbitration process so we can get our money back as soon as possible-assuming they take it away. And I say that because the County has a track record of saying one thing and doing another. I will keep the members posted on further developments on this issue.
In Solidarity, K. S. Galhotra
President, Local 3315
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