JACKSON TO HOLD UNION VOTE; FIFTY-ONE CITY EMPLOYEES WILL DECIDE IBEW REPRESENTATION

JACKSON -- City public-works and utilities employees will consider unionization next month.

A vote on the question is scheduled for March 19 at Jackson City Hall. State Board of Mediation officials will oversee the election.

If approved, the workers would become members of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 702 based in West Frankfort, Ill.

Fifty one of the Jackson's 104 workers are affected. A simple majority of 26 yes votes is required to bring in the union.

Only employees in the electric, power-and-water, sanitation, water-line, street, waste-water, parks, cemetery, maintenance, building-maintenance and building-and-planning departments will be eligible to participate.

The Jackson Board of Aldermen is unanimously opposed to the union effort and will issue a collective statement about it later, said Alderman Val Tuschoff.

Mayor Paul Sander said, "We certainly support their right to make the effort if that's what they want." However, he questioned the wisdom of allowing an out-of-state organization a hand in the day-to-day operation of the city.

"I hold no animosity towards our employees, but I feel like we are better served by taking care of ourselves," Sander said.

Ron D. Brown, a city electric employee and a union supporter, referred all comments to the union's West Frankfort office.

Don Woolridge, assistant business manager of Local 702, said the union has been working with city employees for more than a year. The union can ensure workers a voice in the workplace and provide job security, Woolridge said.

"Management has the right to make changes, but at least with a union it can't make unilateral changes, he said. "They have to sit down and talk about it."

The issue of job security is of heightened importance for electric-plant workers as pending industry deregulation could lead to much downsizing and the loss of jobs, Woolridge said.

To trigger a union vote, only 30 percent of targeted employees need express interest in unionizing. Woolridge said the union is confident it can produce a majority.

"We think the support is there. If we didn't we wouldn't have asked for a vote," Woolridge said.

Local 702 represents approximately 4,700 workers in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. In Southeast Missouri it represents employees of the Sikeston electric and water systems, Union Electric and most of the region's rural electric cooperatives.

City Administrator Steve Wilson said city employees have been contacted by unions in the past but this is the first time a vote on unionization will be held.

"In my opinion, unionizing would not be in the best interests of the employees," said Wilson. "Moreover, it would not be in the best interest of Jackson and its residents."

In a letter to city employees issued last Friday, Wilson stressed similar sentiments.

He said the city already provides an excellent salary and benefits package and has a positive relationship with its employees. A union, in his opinion, could not improve these items and would impede the city and its workers from direct cooperation on important issues.

"There is nothing that a union can require the city to do except cause the city to spend time and money dealing with the union, when that time and money could be better spent solving the problems of the citizens of Jackson," Wilson said in the letter.