Consumer Reports employees ratify new contract

New York Guild members at Consumer Reports overwhelmingly voted Thursday for a one-year contract extension that raises all salaries and locks in, for two years, their new adjustable pension plan.

The vote to ratify was 172 to 5.

“It was a good settlement,” Guild President Bill O’Meara said. “Overall, we’re very happy.”

The new agreement provides for a 2.5 percent increase in wages. The old contract expired Dec. 31.

The agreement also locks in the two-year-old adjustable pension plan as a company benefit without an approval deadline.

Under the new agreement, however, the company will reduce its contribution to the pension plan from the 6 percent of base pay that it had been paying for the past two years to 5 percent of base pay, with the remaining 1 percent to be given to employees in the form a non-matching company contribution to their 401(k) accounts.