(Butler, PA) A five-month bargaining stalemate ended today when Butler County Community College trustees during a special meeting approved a contract accepted Monday by the union representing BC3’s secretarial and clerical employees and updated with increases to a one-time retirement incentive payment and to first-year base salaries or hourly rates.
Negotiators representing the college and the BC3 Education Support Professionals PSEA/NEA met July 11 with a state Department of Labor & Industry mediator attempting to settle an impasse declared in February to the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board and continuing after an April 1 fact finder’s report and recommendations.
BC3’s secretarial and clerical employees have continued to work under the terms of a previous contract’s addendum that expired June 30, 2023.
The three-year contract finalized today differs from that BC3 trustees authorized to offer Oct. 5 by increasing a one-time retirement incentive payment to $9,000 from $8,000. It also included a first-year base-salary increase to $750 from $500 for current full-time employees and first-year hourly rate raises to 35 cents from 25 cents for current part-time workers.
Wage increases are retroactive to July 1, 2023.
Terms of the Oct. 5 contract offer maintained in the final agreement and retroactive to July 1, 2023, include 3 percent annual raises for all employees; and starting salary increases for full-time workers to $36,542 in the first year, $37,273 in the second and $38,018 in the third.
The starting hourly rate for new full-time secretarial and clerical employees in the first year of the contract and maintained from the October offer is $20.30 for a 37.5-hour workweek, higher than that paid by eight Pennsylvania community colleges and by seven Butler County school districts that responded to a query this spring. The rate increases to $20.71 in the second year and to $21.12 in the third.
The starting hourly rate for new part-time workers maintained from the October contract offer is $16.46 in the first year, $16.79 in the second and $17.13 in the third.
The final contract maintained from the October offer a second retirement incentive option of a four-day workweek with a 20 percent pay reduction and full benefits, and the addition of three personal days for part-time employees.
