Batavia streets workers offer pay freeze for no-layoff promise

Batavia and its street department workers are poised to sign a new, one-year contract that calls for no raises and no layoffs.

The city council's government services committee will discuss the proposal Wednesday night.

The proposed agreement calls for an increase in the uniform allowance, from $250 annually per worker to $300.

The workers are giving up 32 hours of pay a year, agreeing to straight time instead of time-and-a-half for eight holidays. That amounts to a 1.5 percent wage reduction, and is in line with what other rank-and-file workers in the city have undergone.

The contract is retroactive to Jan. 1, and covers about 15 workers.

Employees who were due to receive pay raises this year because they had advanced into a higher wage category on the stepped salary schedule will receive a raise Jan. 1, 2011, but the amount has not been determined.

It also calls for hiring back any workers who were laid off in the last year as temporary leaf pickup workers. However, no employees were laid off from the unit in the last year.