Scranton, police union agree to two-year contract extension

Scranton Mayor Paige Gebhardt Cognetti and the city police union have agreed to a two-year contract extension with a 5% pay increase each year, and the pact now goes to Scranton City Council for approval, the mayor announced.

A contract extension with Fraternal Order of Police E.B. Jermyn Lodge No. 2 follows a similar extension reached in June with the city firefighters’ union, the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 60, which gave firefighters a 3% raise in each of the next two years.

Both labor contracts were set to expire Dec. 31, and the extensions push expiration dates to Dec. 31, 2028.

“The men and women of the Scranton Police Department are our region’s best. They serve our community selflessly, and they deserve to be compensated fairly,” Cognetti said in an announcement Friday. “We will always invest in public safety in Scranton and in the individuals who make our quality of life possible.”

The contract extensions — coming over six months before the firefighter union contract was set to expire and over three months before expiration of the police union contract —  contrasts with the prior protracted negotiations between the Cognetti administration and the Department of Public Works employee union, Local Lodge 2305 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO. Those DPW negotiations took over a year to resolve after the prior contract expiration. A new, three-year DPW contract finally was reached in March to run through Dec. 31, 2029.

Regarding the police contract, their union approved the contract extension calling for base wage increases of 5% in each of 2027 and 2028. Police union President Justin Butler and Cognetti in recent days signed a memorandum of agreement. Cognetti’s administration now has submitted to council legislation to authorize this extension, in the form of a resolution on council’s agenda for introduction at council’s weekly meeting Tuesday night.

Previously, council voted to approve the DPW contract in March and the firefighter-union contract extension in June.

Meanwhile, city clerical employees and those in the Scranton Single Tax Office are represented by Local Lodge No. 2462 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, AFL-CIO, and both have contracts that expire Dec. 31, 2027.