Ridgewood NJ, after mounting pressure from legislative leaders, Governor Phil Murphy today signed Executive Order No. 266, which will increase the pay for New Jersey’s poll workers from $200 to $300 for Election Day, and increase pay during the early voting period by a commensurate hourly rate, to incentivize poll worker participation during the early voting period as well as Election Day in this year’s general election. Today’s Order also waives the restriction that limits poll workers to serving only within the county in which they reside.
Bergen County Police would be due hefty pay raise in consolidation with Sheriff’s Office, union says
MAY 16, 2014, 6:41 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014, 10:58 PM BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
A rose is a rose is a rose, author Gertrude Stein once wrote.
But is a realignment a merger or a consolidation?
That’s the question left dangling after a four-year contract that the Bergen County freeholders approved unanimously this week with the union that represents officers in the Bergen County Police Department.
And it’s a $1-million-a-year question.
The board’s Democratic freeholders contend that their plan to put the 89-member county police force under the command of the sheriff is a realignment, not a merger. The ordinance, approved by the freeholders in October, uses the word transfer, not merger.
Thus they hope to avoid a so-called poison-pill clause insisted upon by the union that would scuttle the deal if the department is merged, consolidated or disbanded into the Sheriff’s Office.
Under that interpretation, the new labor contract would be undone and the final overlapping year of the old contract would kick in.
Three years ago, at the request of Bergen County Executive Kathleen Donovan, the union agreed to defer pay increases until 2014, the final year of the old contract.
This year, the union made concessions on wages in exchange for job security. It inserted the poison pill to protect against a merger.
If the transfer is not called off or voided by a court, and the union succeeds in invoking the poison pill, then instead of getting a 1.5 percent annual pay hike under the renegotiated contract, the officers would get a 10 percent raise starting this year under the terms of the old agreement. And they would have to negotiate a new one for future years.
The difference is about $1 million in annual salaries.
The freeholders voted for the realignment only after receiving written assurance from the county’s labor lawyer that nothing in the new contract limits which department can supervise the County Police.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen-county-police-would-be-due-hefty-pay-raise-in-consolidation-with-sheriff-s-office-union-says-1.1018056#sthash.yZidHCIC.dpuf
