NEW LENOX – The New Lenox public works employee union has reached its first collective bargaining agreement with the village.
Village trustees approved the agreement at a meeting Monday night.
Reaching a first contract with the International Union of Operating Engineers, Local 150 Public Employee Division was lengthy but fairly painless, according to Mayor Tim Baldermann.
The process took six months to complete because it was the first contract drawn up with the nascent union, but no real negotiations took place, he said.
According to Village Administrator Kurt Carroll, the union adopted the village's current pay schedule. Employees will receive 2.5-percent wage increases annually for the next three years, effective May 1, 2016, and a 3-percent increase May 1, 2019.
According to Baldermann, the new contract "memorialized some of our current policies" in a union contract.
Also Monday, village trustees approved a $5,000 contract with Chicago-based CBRE Inc. to conduct a study to ascertain whether there is any interest from developers to build a hotel at the intersection of Interstate 355 and Route 6.
With the Silver Cross Hospital campus slated to expand, as well as the opening of University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Center, a hotel is necessary in the area, Baldermann said.
The village continues to work on developing that intersection, which was slated to house large shopping malls prior to the economic recession in 2008, he said.
While those plans are no longer feasible, development is still possible there, with retail shops and restaurants catering to the Silver Cross employees and patients, he said.
Trustees also approved moving forward with an application for a $1.1 million grant from the Illinois Transportation Enhancement Program for a beautification project in conjunction with the Illinois Department of Transportation's upcoming improvement project for the Route 30 and Interstate 80 interchange.
The grant would cover 80 percent of the $1.4 million beautification project and the village would provide the 20 percent in local matching funds equalling almost $280,000.