photo by: Mike Yoder

Lawrence City Hall, 6 E. Sixth St., is pictured Thursday, July 7, 2016.

Another group of workers employed by the City of Lawrence has voted to unionize.

The city’s maintenance and Parks and Recreation workers voted this week to join Teamsters Local 696 in Topeka.

The 70-worker unit is “seeking improved working conditions and wages, respect on the job, and fair and consistent work rules,” a news release from the Teamsters on Wednesday said.

In January, Teamsters organizer Dale Crane told the Journal-World that key issues for the employee group were pay and policies. Crane said that employees have gotten small and infrequent raises in the past, and that pay for some employees did not reflect the hazardous conditions they sometimes have to work in. He said employees would also like to see clearer and more consistent policies.

As the Journal-World previously reported, the employee group includes central maintenance, GIS, engineering, technician, building maintenance and park field workers, according to the city resolution governing unions.

“Now that we’re Teamsters, we will continue to fight and win at the City of Lawrence,” said Simon Barnes, a Parks Facility Maintenance technician, in the release. “We are more united than ever and ready to continue our momentum as we negotiate a first contract that will bring real change.”

The maintenance and Parks and Rec workers are the third city employee group to unionize under the Teamsters and the fifth city employee group overall to be represented by a union. The city’s solid waste workers voted to unionize under the Teamsters in August 2020, and Municipal Services and Operations employees voted to do so in October 2021. Those groups are in addition to longstanding unions for police and fire and medical employees: the Lawrence Police Officers Association and the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1596.