The following is a summary of our biggest wins in our 2021 MHCD Contract! If you’d like to read the full contract, you can do so using THIS LINK.
Benefits Summary
- NICE Healthcare – This new health option includes telehealth, at home visits, 500+ prescription options, and virtual mental healthcare all without a copay or a deductible.
- VSP for vision – No more cumbersome CIGNA reimbursement plan where you pay in full up front then get money back. The switch to VSP providers means you pay a regular copay you’re all set no need to pay all up front.
- Healthcare Premiums – Slight Decrease
| Enrollment Type | Premium | Annual Premium |
| Employee Only | Monthly – $69, Pay Period – $34.5 | $828 |
| Employee + Child(ren) | Monthly – $272, Pay Period – $136 | $3,264 |
| Employee + Spouse | Monthly – $310, Pay Period – $155 | $3,720 |
| Employee + Child(ren) + Spouse | Monthly – $474, Pay Period – $237 | $5,688 |
- Orthodontics – No age limit, before this contract only persons 19 years or less could get orthodontics coverage.
- CIGNA Mental Health Therapy – No Copay for in-network mental healthcare. Mental health workers should have access to mental healthcare.
- Life Insurance for Co-responders – The payout of the life insurance plan for co-responders has doubled in size.
- Short/Long Term Disability for Co-responders – These benefits will pay 60% of a co-responder’s wages rather than the 50% prior to this agreement.
- Retirement Employer-Match – Used to be 2.5%. Now 1 year=4% 2 years=5% and safe harbor status intact.
- Bereavement Leave – Covers miscarriages now.
- SIB Accrual – SIB accrual rates have now doubled.
- Expand use of Central Sick Leave Bank – Can access for parental leave.
- Wellbeing Days – You have 16 hours of SIB that you can now use at any time without a doctor’s note and without using other PTO first. You can only use this time in 8 hour increments and not back to back.
Wages Summary
- You’ve won a wage scale, that means a guaranteed COLA and a guaranteed step increase both on the first of the year.
- Under the old system of pay there was no transparency and no one could quite tell why one person made this amount and another made that amount. There was an algebraic equation used to calculate the credits assigned for your previous work experience. We discovered numerous errors under the old system.
- The new system is clear and transparent. Every new hire that comes in has a set rate of pay that they can make and no new hire can ever make more than an existing employee.
- Under the old system the lowest paid worker made $14.87/hr. If this contract is ratified the lowest paid worker will make $24.04/hr. This new contract has an average increase of 17% and a median increase of 13.7% the absolute lowest percentage increase for any worker is 4%. For comparison, last year’s bargaining session got between 3% and 5% for workers.
- The most difficult and most expensive part of bargaining was determining the method that workers would transition to the new system. A year for year transition to the steps was not feasible because the total cost was astronomically high. Even a 2:1 transition would have meant reducing the dollar amount of each step, an option that was not seriously considered. Your bargaining team chose to put more money in your pocket and to use a formula for the transition to accomplish that. The formula takes your former hourly wage and adds a 4% COLA as well as a market adjusted percent that varies by job then to round that number up to the nearest step on the appropriate scale.
- A number of new jobs were created this bargaining session.
- For Example Peer Specialist I and II. II being a peer with the Colorado Family and Peer Specialist (CFPS) certificate. Vocational Counselor I, II, and now III.
- Voc I will be workers with no degree but who hold the CFPS, VOC II will be workers with a bachelors, and VOC III will be workers with a masters.
- Management corrected their error and took the 4 Admin I employees, a role that was meant to have ceased years ago, and made them all regular Administrative Assistants.
- Lead Maintenance Technician was created.
- PFS I, PFS II, and Lead PFS Advisor were created. PFS I has no degree, PFS II has a bachelors, and Lead PFS Advisor has a bachelors and takes on extra duties.
- The Driver position has been restored to the contract. Licensed Co-responders are now paid slightly more than unlicensed masters co-responders who are paid more than unlicensed bachelors co-responders.
- Thermal Remediation Technician. This job was excluded from the union and we have won its inclusion.
- For Example Peer Specialist I and II. II being a peer with the Colorado Family and Peer Specialist (CFPS) certificate. Vocational Counselor I, II, and now III.
- 2nd Jobs are now protected by your contract. Reports surfaced that workers were underpaid and sometimes did not receive their differentials when they took a second job at MHCD. That has been corrected and now all provisions of the contract apply to 2nd jobs including differentials and pay. A worker at a second job would be paid at their current step on the wage scale of that second job.
