East Hampton Reaches Long Overdue Contract Agreement With Employees

East Hampton Town and its civil service employees’ union announced this week that they have reached a new contract agreement more than two years after the last contract expired.

The new agreement, which was ratified by the Civil Service Employees Association union members in a vote last week, will apply retroactively to the salaries of town employees back to January 2019. All CSEA employees will get 2.5-percent raises for the five years of the contract, which will run until the end of 2023, and an additional 1-percent bonus for 2019 and 2020.

Union president Mile Maier said he was relieved the contract was finally done, having taken far longer to hammer out than is typical in the town. And still, the contract was only ratified by about three-quarters of members who cast ballots on April 7 — and a fair number still dissatisfied with the contract.

“When it comes down to it, it’s about more money,” Mr. Maier said of the deal this week. “East Hampton, compared to a lot of other municipalities is on the lower end of the pay scale. So, while the raises we agreed to are [good], there is a lot of concern that we are still not competitive. We have the same interests: retention, career minded employees, local people that want to stay here instead of people coming from two hours away.”

Mr. Maier said that the town has been working on nudging its salary schedule closer to other municipalities by adjusting the standard hourly wage for various positions, and the new contract creates a committee of town officials and union members to work together how pay is balanced.

About 200 of the town’s approximately 330 employees work in civil service positions and are members of the CSEA union.

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said that contract is a boon to the town’s employees as well as a sound one for taxpayers.

“I am pleased to have reached this agreement with the union representing our town employees, whose efforts keep our town running,” said Mr. Van Scoyoc, who led the negotiations on the town’s behalf with labor attorney Vince Toomey and deputy budget officer Becky Hansen. “The contract not only provides for appropriate wage increases and compensation, but is fiscally responsible to our East Hampton residents and taxpayers.”

Mr. Maier said he hopes the next round of negotiations, which will start in less than two years, will go better than the last one, if only because the new contract creates some avenues to the two sides working together better ahead of time.

“I’m encouraged,” he said. “Part of the relationship between the town and the union is always going to be adversarial. But if we’re able to sit in a room together and look at the numbers together, maybe we can better their situation. We all take this very seriously.”