AN INDIVIDUAL Medical Savings Account for employees is a new feature in a contract negotiated by Council 2 for members of Local 433, who work for the City of Coeur d’Alene.

The contract calls for the City to contribute $63 a month into an msa account for each member of the Local. The money can be used for any out-of-pocket medical expenses that employees incur. The amount increases by $5 each year of the five-year contract until it reaches a total of $85 a month.

The MSA is provided in addition to employees’ existing medical package.

The contract is for five years. Washington state law limits contracts to three years, but longer terms are possible in Idaho.

The contract also includes a cost-of-living adjustment based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for each year of the contract. The adjustment cannot be less than 2 percent or higher than 3 percent.

The contract, ratified in December, is the first that recognizes Council 2 as the exclusive representative for the City employees. Although Council 2 negotiated the previous two contracts for the Local, the union was not formally recognized in them.

Indeed, Council 2 has gained considerable ground over the last seven years in Coeur d’Alene, explains Gordon Smith, Council 2 staff representative in Spokane, who was involved in negotiating the new contract.

In 1997 the City voted to remove collective bargaining. Council 2 later succeeded in having collective bargaining reinstated through a successful initiative that was placed on the ballot in 1998.

The latest contract is testimony to the effectiveness of that initiative, for which many Council 2 members worked extremely hard.