A&R has endorsed Brian Smith for the 48th state house district.  This is a special election to be held on Tuesday January 14th covering parts of the towns of Colchester, Lebanon, Mansfield, and Windham.  This seat was occupied by Linda Orange, who sadly passed away at the end of November.  Her passing required a special election which will be held on 1/14/2020.  The polls will be open from 6AM to 8PM and we encourage anyone covered by the 48th district to support the A&R endorsed candidate.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

We are seeking membership input for 2 areas of A&R: Contract Negotiations and Social Activities and we hope you take a moment to help us in our effort to solicit ideas from everyone, even if you can't attend the union meetings.

The first ask is regarding the A&R contract: although our contract won't expire until July 2021, we have started the process of formulating ideas for our successor agreement, so if there is anything in our contract that you would like to see or you would like to change or fix, please take a moment to complete the open ended question to let us know.  If you wish to attend our negotiations meetings (the next meeting is January 22, 2020) we certainly welcome all A&R members. You are not "locked in" if you attend one meeting, you can attend as your schedule allows, but everyone is welcome to give input and speak on any issue.

The second "survey" is for the Social Committee.  Every year we run at least a dozen events with great participation, but we are always looking for new ideas/events.  If you have an idea for an event or trip, we would love to hear it...keep in mind that costs and time are considerable factors in planning social events so we need to be reasonable (yes, a trip to Majorka would be great, but highly unlikely as a union sponsored trip)...so if you have an idea you think would be fun for a day or afternoon or want us to try a new venue for our current events, let us know. 

Negotiations Input

Social Committee Input

The DAS Family and Medical Leave Entitlements manual will soon be re-issued with a change to the formula for calculating Reduced Schedule Leave for Bonding (which is Chapter 17 of the manual).  The revised calculation corrects an error in the formula and impacts Steps 3 & 4 of the formula which will now factor in the days NOT worked rather than the days worked.  Anyone who is utilizing a reduced schedule for bonding leave should review the revised calculation as it may impact the benefit that was granted.  The revised formula for steps 3 & 4 are below:

3^rd- Determine what percentage of the work

Just a personal note: as someone who went to Sandy Hook Elementary School as a child and graduated from Newtown HS, I can't help but comment on the Newtown High School football team which won the Class LL State Championship on 12/14/2019...the 7th anniversary of the school shooting.  Some of those football players attended SHS at the time of the tragedy and for them to win the Championship on the final play of the game on the same date 7 years later was so moving and so perfect.  Congrats NHS!!!

Friday December 20th, all employees who are not on the Top Step of their salary grade will "move up" one step.  Those on the Top Step of their salary grade will receive a Top Step Payment of 2.5%.  For those who don't "math", there is a table near the back of the blue A&R Contract book which calculates the Top Step Payment that you will receive; use the 6/21/2019 table.  Since these are awarded on the first day of the payperiod, they won't be reflected in your paycheck until January 16, 2020. 

A couple of caveats: the Step increase requires a minimum "Good or Better" service rating from September 2019.  The Top Step Payment does not have that requirement, it is now part of the annual salary (based upon a language change we made in the recent contract negotiations).  ACTs/CCTs in a 2 year training class have seperate language, they will move to Salary Grade 15 Step 5 upon completion of 1 year of satisfactory service.

View the current Wage Charts

View the Top Step Payment Table