Teamsters vote givebacks to avert 50 layoffs in Yonkers

[Omaha Steve]

http://lohud.com/article/20081223/NEWS02/812230364/-1/SPORTS

By Len Maniace
The Journal News • December 23, 2008

YONKERS - The city's Teamsters voted yesterday evening to give back a pay raise and allow the city to skip payments to the union's welfare fund in exchange for guarantee that none of the 50 Teamsters slated to be laid off would lose their jobs.

Teamsters Local 456 would have been the hardest hit among city unions, accounting for 50 of the 76 proposed full-time layoffs announced by Mayor Phil Amicone on Dec. 12. An additional 75 part-time workers would be laid off as part of the mayor's plan to eliminate a $16 million gap in the combined city-school district budget of $893 million. The Teamsters have 439 members working for the city.

"That's terrific for them and their families, and terrific for the city because it saves jobs," Amicone said. "It saves the services they were performing that they no longer would have been been able to perform."

The mayor said Teamsters chief Eddie Doyle Jr. reported to him that 95 percent of the 400 union members who participated in the vote favored the measure. The givebacks dealt with two points: postponement of a 2 1/2 percent pay raise set for Dec. 31 until July 1, and elimination of the city's payments to the union's welfare or benefits fund for the first six months of 2009.

Doyle did not return calls to his office yesterday or several others in the week following Amicone's layoff announcement. Some 46 of the jobs that were in jeopardy are in the Department of Public Works; four are in the Department of Parks and Recreation.

Layoff notices, which would take effect Jan. 2, went out to all city workers facing layoffs late last week.

FULL story at link.