E. Grand Forks Teamsters Overwhelmingly Reject City's Offer

E. Grand Forks Teamsters Overwhelmingly Reject City's Offer

City-Hired ‘Labor Consultant’ Negotiates in Bad Faith with Local Residents

December 19, 2002

(E. Grand Forks, MN) – Members of Teamsters Local 116 in E. Grand Forks, MN voted 100% overwhelmingly yesterday to reject an outside contractor’s latest offer on behalf of the city. The Teamsters are employed in the city’s street maintenance department.

“It has now been more than a year since our member’s contract expired with the city of E. Grand Forks,” said Dean Cypher, President of Teamsters Local 116. “Street department employees who belong to the Teamsters have served E. Grand Forks faithfully while trying to negotiate this contract, but the city will not even meet us half way.”

E. Grand Forks Street Department employees do the work we often don’t notice or don’t see when residents are asleep. They plow the snow, dirt and debris during and after storms, clear ditches drains on city roads, repair city vehicles and spray for mosquitoes during the summer months. Most of the 17 street department employees are life-long Minnesotans and are seeking a two-year contract with retroactive pay. They have worked without a contract for more than a year.

Negotiations began in November of 2001 and have been complicated by the presence of the city’s hired negotiator, outside consultant Cy Smythe of the Labor Relations Associates. Labor Relations Associates appears to be stonewalling negotiations in order to continue charging the city exorbitant fees, all at tax-payer expense.

City negotiators have rejected every union proposal dating back to last year.

“The city of E. Grand Forks is spending taxpayer dollars against city residents to defeat the union’s proposals when they haven’t put forth any valid proposals of their own,” Cypher said. “The city should remove the middle man from this process, come back to the table and bargain fairly, and then we can settle a contract and return things to normal.”

Teamsters Local 116 represents more than 1,400 workers throughout northwest Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.