Oyster Bay Town public employee union votes to keep leadership

Oyster Bay Town public employees voted Friday to keep their current union leadership in place.

Vote tallies posted on the Civil Service Employees Association Local 881 website showed a sweep by incumbents as a slate of challengers failed to win a single seat in the leadership.

“The membership spoke and loud clear,” local 881 president Jarvis Brown said Monday. “Right now the membership feels it’s not a good time to change the union leadership.”

Brown’s opponent, Keith Wilson, had argued that the union failed to properly represent workers last year when negotiating a new contract that was ratified in January. The new contract includes a 2 percent pay cut and the elimination of productivity payments — a form of guaranteed overtime — for sanitation workers that has spawned a federal lawsuit by some of those workers. That dissatisfaction wasn’t enough to unseat Brown, who won by a large margin, defeating Wilson with 410 votes to 295.

Brown said Monday the union’s next task is to make sure the contract is followed and the town administration is held accountable.