Tentative Marquette County Labor Deals

The labor contracts that eight different Marquette County employee unions have with the county expire Monday night at midnight.

This afternoon, the County Board took a big step toward getting new contracts in place.

The eight bargaining units have been in talks with Marquette County Civil Counsel Stephen Adamini about new deals.

And the board has approved tentative new deals with five of them.

The contracts are still subject to employee ratification.

County Administrator Scott Erbisch says the five groups were the Sawyer International Airport employees union, the Marquette County Central Dispatch union, the Sheriff’s Department senior officers union, the Health Department nurses association and the Health Department employees union.

The Sheriff’s Department senior officers contract would last through the end of 2017, and the others would last through 2015.

The county also had to decide by the end of this year how it would deal with a state requirement for employee health care coverage.

Erbisch says instead of requiring county employees to pay 20% of the cost of their health insurance premiums, the County Board voted to implement a 6% match of the 2012 premium rates for county employees.

This option will be more expensive for the county than it would have been to have employees pay 20% of their health insurance.

The county still needs tentative deals with the deputy road patrol, deputy corrections and courthouse unions.