DeKalb County reaches tentative agreement for updated two-year union contract for nursing home workers

SYCAMORE – A labor contract with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees No. 3537 for the unionized workers of the DeKalb County Rehab and Nursing Center is one step closer to approval as a tentative contract agreement heads to the County Board.

The DeKalb County Board’s Executive Committee this week moved to put the new labor contract on the agenda for the Sept. 21 County Board meeting. A formal vote is expected to go before the board next week. The contract bargaining is for workers in the union who specifically work for the nursing center, said Chuck Simpson, interim president of AFSCME No. 3537.

The parties reached a tentative agreement on a contract that runs through through Dec. 31, 2023, according to a county document. The parties came to an agreement on the contract for the AFSCME workers at the DCRNC about 12 days ago.

“The county didn’t really want to give us too much, but we as the union, the bargaining committee, we have dug in and so I think we got a pretty good contract, especially for the lower-earning members,” Simpson said Thursday. “We are really pleased with that.”

Former union President Chuck Coulter recently resigned from his job as a maintenance worker at the facility days after the County Board voted to sell the facility to a private buyer by year’s end. Coulter was a frequent and vocal attendee at board meetings leading up to the vote. Coulter often spoke in opposition to a private sale, voicing concern for its impact on current employees and their benefits.

County Administrator Brian Gregory told county officials this week that the contract is a two-year agreement and would be retroactive to Jan. 1, since the original contract expired at the end of 2020 and was extended for one year.

“With any agreement you always want to get it done as quickly as you can, but I think we did it in a prudent fashion and tried to make sure that we got everything addressed collectively between the county and AFSCME,” Gregory said.

Despite the previous contract, with its one year extension, expiring at the beginning of this year, Gregory said he believes the timing of the contract negotiations wasn’t significantly abnormal.

“But it’s not terribly uncommon to have a contract that’s being negotiated into and after one has expired,” Gregory said. “But what we do then is make it retroactive.”

Simpson said the union members who work at the county nursing home – which has been at the center of controversy for nearly a year after elected officials grappled with financial shortfalls, leading to a sale – are the last subset of union members in the county to be offered a new labor contract. All other contracts with AFSCME No. 3537 workers were settled previously, Simpson said.

“I really think it was because of the future of the nursing home was, like I said, questionable,” Simpson said.

The center – which has been the subject of more than a year of fiscal debate – faces more than $7 million in debt because of what county officials have alleged was mismanagement, delinquent billing and ailing resident numbers.

On July 20, the board voted, 17-5, to accept a letter of intent to sell the facility for $8,300,100 to Evanston-based Illuminate HC, a private health care company that specializes in operating skilled nursing facilities. Simpson said Thursday that he’s not optimistic about the center being run by Illuminate HC.

“They said they’d welcome a union with welcome arms, but that’s questionable,” he said. “But we’ll see. We’ll see how it all plays out.”

In addition to the labor contract, a retention bonus was offered for AFSCME No. 3537 members working at the center. The bonus, an additional $2 an hour for the center’s unionized employees, is the same as the bonus offered last month to nonunion employees working at the facility. The bonus is designed to help retain staff at the nursing facility while the county executes a sale of the center to Illuminate H.C., officials said.

Both parties have bargaining “in good faith,” to come to the tentative contract agreement, according to county documents. Details of the agreement have not been published, although some information is known.

Among the flexibilities offered in the new proposed union contract is the ability for a worker to decline benefits and get a higher hourly pay rate.

“What was put together previously was a memorandum of understanding for just certain positions, and so the hourly rate was increased but the benefits ... were essentially waiving the majority of the benefits,” Gregory said. “And so we extended that to not only the CNA staff but also to some of the ancillary staff as well that’s covered by the AFSCME agreement.”

The contract is expected to go before the County Board on Sept. 21. However, the union will need to vote and that is expected to happen Sept. 27. Both the union and the County Board have to vote to approve the contract for it to be fully ratified.

“We’ll see how the vote turns out,” Simpson said, noting he was pleased to be able to offer the contract for union members to vote on. “I don’t think it’s going to be a problem passing, but you just, you never know which way the wind is going to blow.”