We have achieved a meaningful breakthrough in negotiations with the DOC over your 2023-2025 collective bargaining agreement.

Your Union achieved an agreement with the State that they will no longer be requiring that you receive a COVID booster shot as a condition of employment. After we shared the high level of Teamster member participation and presented the results of our vaccine mandate survey, the State admitted that "labor had spoken".

This is a powerful example of why it is important that you stay engaged with your Union. If negotiations proceed as anticipated, we are hoping to be able to provide you with some additional good news related to vaccines soon. Stay tuned!

Although we've made relatively good progress with the State on some language issues, there are still several others, especially those related to sick leave and overtime, that we will be pushing to resolve in mediation, and if necessary, interest arbitration. With regard to economics, the DOC has agreed to many of our proposals for targeted range increases. This is an encouraging sign. We will continue to fight for other classifications to receive increases commensurate with their comparables.

As a reminder, the MOU mandatory overtime pilot program impacting officers and sergeants terminated on Friday. Our survey clearly indicated that members are not interested in extending that program. Instead, we are pushing the Department to address your concerns over excessive mandatory overtime through proposed modifications to our contract.

Your Union bargaining committee is fighting hard and WE ARE WINNING! The difference is the level of member participation and engagement. We will be presenting and voting on a contract soon. You must be a Teamster member to attend the in-person union meetings and to vote. If you are not a member, please join here so that you can cast your important vote and attend.

This week, we have moved into mediation with your employer. Sessions were held on Monday and will be held on Wednesday and Friday. Please be sure to attend the in-person Contract Vote Meetings scheduled at all facilities next week. You can RSVP for those meetings on our Teamsters website here.

Listen to Sarena Davis, Director of Corrections and Law Enforcement, and Tyrrell Baker, CO2 from WCCW, give a recap of over a month of negotiations with DOC and what to expect from the mediation process.