The 85 workers responsible for Lawrence’s infrastructure, street maintenance, engineering and more have voted by more than a 4-1 margin to unionize with Teamsters Local 696.
The City of Lawrence Municipal Services and Operations department follows in the footsteps of sanitation workers, who voted to join the union in August 2020 and ratified their first contract this summer that increases wages and provides strong seniority language, grievance procedures and more, according to a Thursday news release from the union.
The MSO workers want better wages, fairer work rules and improved benefits, the release says.
“After seeing sanitation workers organize and win the protections and benefits of a Teamster contract, we knew what we had to do. The decision wasn’t just for our future, but for the future of our great city,” Steve Demaranville, an MSO worker, said in the release.
“The turnover has been too high for too long, and we needed a union voice to bring us stability. Too many city workers were quitting because of the longstanding issues that needed to be addressed. Now that we are Teamsters, we are on our way to winning the respect and working conditions we deserve,” he continued.
In addition to the MSO and sanitation workers, the city has two longstanding bargaining units, the Lawrence Police Officers Association and the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) Local 1596.
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August Rudisell/Lawrence Times
