The City Council unanimously voted Tuesday night to adopt pay increases for Worcester’s firefighters and police supervisors.
The vote follows collective bargaining agreements with the Worcester Firefighters International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1009 and International Brotherhood of Police Officers Local 504.
For the police supervisors, the new contract will result in base wage increase of 2.5% for fiscal 2022, 2.75% for fiscal 2023, 3% for fiscal 2024, 3% for fiscal 2025 and 2% for fiscal 2026.
As for firefighters, the agreement provides a base wage increase of 3% for fiscal 2024, 3% for fiscal 2025 and 2% for fiscal 2026.
Both previous contracts expired on June 30, 2023.
The agreement also includes a market wage adjustment of 1% effective on the last day of fiscal 2024 and improved leave benefits such as paid parental leave and family sick leave.
City Manager Eric Batista praised municipal officials for the hard work they do, highlighting their importance for the safety and well-being of Worcester.
“We wanted to make sure there were a lot of different bargaining units at different dates,” he said. “The increases here, all of them, are what we’ve been giving to all our employees. All of them have received a 3% cost-of-living adjustment.”
“There’s been a lot of adjustments to differentials between different ranks. We’ve seen a lot of compression happening here from previous contracts, so we wanted to make some adjustments,” Batista added.
Batista also mentioned the idea of employee evaluations and possibly starting a committee to focus on those evaluations for municipal officials. He ended by saying, “We want to be sure we listen to the bargaining units, but also make sure we put some dollars into supporting our employees.”
