Athens' code enforcement employees are nearing the end of their battle to become unionized, as City Council members will vote on a final contract tonight.
Four officers and one administrative assistant from the code enforcement office petitioned for unionization early this year through the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Mayor Paul Wiehl (D).
The employees have since been negotiating with three City Council members on the terms of a final contract - which includes pay raises and a 30-minute addition to the workday, he added.
The biggest reason (for unionizing) was probably due to the pay
said Brian Zoulek, one of the four code enforcement officers petitioning for the union. A lot of city employees who are not unionized are going three years without pay raises.
If council members approve the agreement, a new pay scale for code enforcement employees will be established, Zoulek said.
But because three of the employees already have maxed out the negotiated pay scale, those employees will receive a 40-cent-per-hour raise each year for three years, when the contract expires, he said.
The other two employees will begin at the bottom of the new scale, which Wiehl said amounts to about a 9 percent pay raise over the course of the contract.
The issue of workday hours also was negotiated between employees and the city's negotiation team, which includes Paula Moseley, safety service director; Pat Lang, law director and Beverly Henderson, personnel director for the mayor's office, Wiehl said.
Employees of the Code Enforcement Office currently work 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a one-hour paid lunch, Wiehl said.
If council members approve the contract tonight, the workday will be 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a half-hour unpaid lunch, he added.
Because we joined the union they (council members) said that the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. workday was a non-union benefit Zoulek said. They said
You're a union; we're not paying you for your lunch break.'
Agreements regarding vacation time
sick leaves and health care packages will also be included in the final contract
Zoulek said
adding that the biggest change for unionized employees would be pay raises.
Basically what we did was take everything we had, became a union and adjusted our pay scale, he said.
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29524,2009-10-19 01:30:00,"Wild Things' scores big
Imagine an island that can only be reached after a long sailboat ride; an island that has forest, desert and fun, crazy, furry friends to romp around with. This is Where the Wild Things Are.
Imagine an island that can only be reached after a long sailboat ride; an island that has forest, desert and fun, crazy, furry friends to romp around with. This is Where the Wild Things Are.
Originally a 10-sentence children's book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak in 1963, Where the Wild Things Are has been read to children for generations before becoming a film this year. Directed by Spike Jonze with a screenplay co-written by fairly prominent adult fiction writer Dave Eggers, the film adaptation of the book is not the glossy, brightly-lit children's movie some might suspect. The characters fully come to life through the use of live action, suitmation, animatronics and CGI.
Max becomes a full personality to flush out the book for the screenplay. He is portrayed as a young boy who gets in fights with his sister, craves playful attention from his family and conceals upset feelings about his father being gone and his mother starting to move on and date again.
After one night of a particularly bad fight with his mother, Max runs away in his favorite wolf costume, finds a sailboat and sails away into the night until he reaches a mysterious island inhabited by the Wild Things. He explores his problems through the use of those characters and it is interesting to watch events unfold, especially when the reasoning of each Thing is so childlike, both with each other and with Max.
After mere moments on the island, the Things make Max their king and he is free to call all the shots for the first time in his life, liberating him. He commands that the island is to be all about having fun, which right from that moment ensues.
While the plot is carried out well, and the digital technology truly made the Things come to life, there are parts that seem to move along laboriously, making the film a bit tiresome. And while this would not be an issue for children seeing the movie, James Gandolfini (The Sopranos) as the voice of one of the Things Max is closest to, Carroll, was a bit distracting for me since I am used to the violent roles he usually plays - but his voice does work for the character overall.
In essence, this film does an excellent job of portraying the fun, the sad, the angry and the triumphant moments of Where The Wild Things Are.
- Kelly Kettering is a senior studying journalism. To give her tips on how to make the best possible wolf costume, e-mail her at kk150206@ohiou.edu.
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