by Carli Stevenson | September 05, 2014

The hard-working members of Local 2487, which represents city workers in Bloomington, Indiana, have a history of working cooperatively with city management for the benefit of both workers and city services. When they negotiated their last contract, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, they had no reason to believe things would be different.

But five months later, on June 1, the city revised its personnel policy, limiting compensatory time and mandating that members use 10 days of compensatory time before using their sick time or paid time off. This change was made unilaterally without negotiating with the local.

AFSCME members knew that if they did not fight back, the integrity of the contract would be seriously eroded. If the city didn’t think it had to bargain with members on this, then they could start to make other policies outside the contract.

Local 2487 Pres. Rick Albright filed a grievance and met with management. But more importantly, he worked with Dave Robertson, his staff representative at AFSCME Indiana-Kentucky Organizing Committee 962, to organize his co-workers. Under the banner “Hands Off Our Contract,” more than 80 members signed up to take action during a City Council meeting on Aug. 21.

Having gotten wind of the members’ plan, the city called the local for a meeting and agreed to back off the changes to the personnel policy.

“They knew we had a lot of help coming, and they got scared,” Albright said. “Because we organized, we were able to move things forward.”

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