Housing Authority of Cook County union workers ratified two new union contracts this week, earning average salary floor raises of 4% and 7% and annual cost of living wage increases of 3% and 4%.

Workers previously told the Tribune that they struggled to pay their bills, including rent and mortgage payments, on their pre-ratification salaries. The employees worked without a contract for about a year. As the parties struggled to reach an agreement on the union’s wage and health insurance proposals, they moved to bring in a federal mediator but were able to close a deal without one. The raises for union workers follow recent hefty salary increases for HACC’s senior leadership, which the Tribune recently reported on.

“(Management) thought about us,” said Cassy Williams, who has been an off-again, on-again steward in the HACC union for about 12 years. “We got more out of the deal this time around,” she said, while praising HACC Executive Director Danita Childers for moving the agency in a “good direction” compared to prior management.

Housing Authority of Cook County management said in a statement that Childers, who recently commissioned a study on agency pay and benefits, “continues to lead the commitment to prioritize and improve human resources” at the agency. These new union contracts, the statement said, show that the HACC leadership team is committed to “retain staff members and to make the agency more attractive to newcomers.”

The union contracts will be presented for approval by the board at the March board meeting.

“We’re happy to be able to come to agreement with the union and to continue to provide housing to low-income families in suburban Cook County,” Childers said in the statement.

Childers said in a November interview that the agency budgeted for “a significant salary increase” for many roles for this fiscal year — which wraps up at the end of this month — in anticipation of the union contract negotiations being closed out.

The Tribune previously reported that union workers said the workloads are high and wages are low, causing many union employees to leave the housing authority, one that is deemed “troubled” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. This designation stemmed from performance issues related to an absentee board, low-grade property inspections, incorrect reporting on leases, high outstanding balances for tenants behind on rent and a failure to submit financial reports on time.

HACC is the second largest of the 99 authorities statewide, behind the Chicago Housing Authority. It manages over 1,800 units and serves more than 30,000 people in suburban Cook County. Some of these residents who receive housing assistance through HACC may be running into issues getting in touch with agency employees because of workers’ high caseloads and staff turnover.

HACC’s union workers are split into two units represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 73.

There are 23 members in the maintenance unit — workers who help maintain HACC properties — and there are 77 members in the administrative/clerical unit, which primarily includes housing specialists and office assistants. Housing specialists help low-income county residents obtain and maintain their subsidized housing.

For the first year of the contract, both units will not see annual cost of living increases and instead will receive retroactive salary floor raises in what the union called a “fix-it year” to remedy issues surrounding pay and years of service. Prior to this contract, the units did not have a wage scale; some workers did receive raises upon reaching certain anniversaries in the workplace on top of the 2% to 3% annual cost of living increases received in the prior four-year contract.

Now, workers will be placed on a wage scale based on their years of service upon contract ratification and will move laterally on the wage scale over the life of the four-year contracts. SEIU called the wage scale a “big win.”

For the admin unit, the average raise for workers is 7% for fiscal year 2024, with some employees receiving higher and lower increases. These employees also will go from a 35-hour workweek to a 37.5-hour workweek, a change that puts their schedules more in line with workers in similar roles at other public housing authorities, according to HACC management.

For the maintenance unit, the average raise for workers is 4% for fiscal year 2024. cq comment=”cq”

Housing specialists at the bottom of the wage scale will see their salaries raised from $39,000 to nearly $45,000 annually in the first year of the contract. Workers with 25 years of service or more, the highest end of the wage scale, will earn nearly $71,000 annually by the end of the contract.

First-year office assistants will see their starting pay increase from $35,000 to nearly $37,500, lower than the union’s bargaining goal of an annual salary starting at $40,000. Those workers will all earn over $40,000 annually by the third year of the contract.

Admin unit employees will then receive a 4% cost of living increase in the second year of the contract, followed by two 3% increases.

HACC’s maintenance unit will receive 3% raises for the remaining three years of its contract. The unit also won annual anniversary increases after 15 years of service; the workers previously received these raises in five-year increments, according to SEIU.

“These members were really low paid and they stood up for themselves … even though the employer tried to intimidate them,” said SEIU Local 73 President Dian Palmer. “They did what they needed to do for their families and their lives.”

For Williams, who is in her 24th year at the housing authority as a housing specialist, the raises mean she won’t have to worry as much about her bills, she said. Williams filed for bankruptcy last year because she could not afford her home’s maintenance costs. She told the Tribune she had to ask her mother, who is on a fixed income, to help her and sometimes asked her daughter to buy her food.

“I will have some extra money, and I don’t have to borrow from others or ask for assistance,” Williams said. “Some of the anxiety is going to leave.”

ekane@chicagotribune.com