Brighton City Manager Nate Geinzer is hoping he might have tentative agreements with the city’s unions by the next City Council meeting in three weeks. City Council met in closed door session Thursday before the regular meeting to review where the negotiations process stands at this point. It’s been a tough year for the city of Brighton, which has faced some serious economic challenges, and Geinzer isn’t saying at this time whether he has asked the city’s employees for contract concessions.

The city has four bargaining groups with which it must periodically negotiate new contract. They include T-POAM – the Technical, Professional and Officeworkers Association of Michigan, which represents clerical and DPW employees - and the Police Officers Labor Council, which represents both the police patrol officers unit and command officers unit. Geinzer tells WHMI that two of the bargaining units have reached “consensus” with the city regarding a new contract.

Geinzer says that by consensus, he means the two sides have reached agreement on the economic portion of a new contract, but still have some language aspects to work on. The city has 54 employees, 41 of whom are unionized, with the remaining 13 - such as department heads and supervisory personnel - being non-union. The contracts of all four employee groups are set to expire this summer.
(TT)