A long-running

Contract dispute with Disney taxing district has run over 2 years

contract dispute between Walt Disney World’s taxing district and its firefighters union comes to an end.

A two-and-a-half-year contract dispute between the taxing district that serves Walt Disney World and its firefighters union may end soon.

Reedy Creek Improvement District Administrator John Classe announced at a board meeting Wednesday that his staff and the firefighters union have reached a tentative agreement.

The union’s members must vote on it. The board of the Disney-controlled Reedy Creek district would then approve the contract in March.

Classe would not give details about the agreement.

The firefighters got “96 percent of what I asked for,” said Tim Stromsnes, Reedy Creek Firefighters Association president.

“I feel really good,” he said. “I think finally we got to where we needed to be.”

Stromsnes said he will drop plans for pursuing legislation that would have made magistrates’ decisions binding in Reedy Creek union disputes. Reedy Creek last year said it would not accept a magistrate’s recommendation that sided with the union on many issues.

Stromsnes said most of the 210 employees covered by the union contract would receive pay increases worth an average of 4.7 percent. Workers would also receive $5,000 to cover the time they worked without raises because there had been no contract agreement. He said he was not able to negotiate a bigger pay jump for about 40 emergency workers in the theme parks, bringing them up to what dispatchers earn.

The union did not get a provision it wanted that would have required the district to cover 90 percent of health insurance costs. However, the union will be involved in selecting an insurance plan, Stromsnes said.

“What we’re being told is, we’re going to see all the numbers and actually meet with a broker and basically see what is out there, the whole process,” he said. “We’re going to be a part of the whole bargaining process.”

The district will also provide money for a specialized type of body scan the firefighters had wanted, Stromsnes said. The district won’t provide the procedure directly, though, he said.

The Reedy Creek Firefighters Association president said most of the 210 people covered by the union contract would receive pay increases worth an average of 4.7 percent.