City's Municipal Workers Reach Tentative Agreement

The union representing about 1,600 Providence, Rhode Island, municipal workers has reached a tentative agreement on a three-year contract with the mayor.

Jorge Elorza's office announced Wednesday that members of Local 1033 of the Laborers' International Union would not receive a pay increase in the first year of the deal. The following year they would receive a 2 percent raise and a 2.75 percent increase in the final year of the deal. Their contract expired in June.

The union's full membership and City Council must still approve the agreement.

The Elorza administration says the pay increases in the second and third years of the deal would be offset by about $4.4 million in savings by streamlining health benefits and modernizing how substitute teachers' assistants are deployed.