County Board Meets Tonight To Continue Labor Negotiations

(updated) JERSEYVILLE - Members of the Jersey County Board meet tonight to continue on negotiations with the United Steel Workers that represents county employees.

The meeting tonight is taking place before the 60 day time frame that usually occurs when contract negotiations are due. According to sources with knowledge of the matter, the county approached the union to begin early negotiations. It was further explained that tonight's meeting would likely discuss health insurance benefits to employees. This will be the second meeting regarding the upcoming contract.

During previous personnel contract negotiations, the county spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees hiring an attorney to give recommendations. In past negotiations, a source said the county may not be as frugal as possible and hopes this time it will be different. The person went on to say, "Reasonable people can usually come up with a reasonable agreement. Jersey has spent some big dollars for an outsider working on contracts." "It didn't work out well before having a third party do their negotiations", the person said.

The meeting agenda shows the public comment time reflects "None". The italics are as on the agenda. All matters up to the new business part of the meeting are open.

After the closed session new business portion of the meeting, any action or reportable recommendations will take place in regular session.

This story was corrected to indicate that the first negotiation meeting occurred in July.