ANDOVER — Road crews, custodians and maintenance workers and other union employees will take 8 1âÑ2 unpaid days off so four full-time employees won't lose their jobs. The move will save the town $120,000 this year.

"We obviously wanted to do what was right for everybody," said Wayne Belloir, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union in Andover and a painter in the Plant and Facilities Department. "We all gave up to make sure there wouldn't be any layoffs in our unit."

Under an agreement signed Oct. 21, union members must take the unpaid time off between Nov. 1 and June 30. The furlough plan equates to the loss of 68 hours of pay for every member of the roughly 70-member union.

"They really stepped up to the plate and they shared a sense of pride and ownership and compassion for each other to do this," said Andover Plant and Facilities Director Joe Piantedosi.

"They saved the jobs and helped the town."

AFSCME represents town employees in the Public Works and Plant and Facilities departments, including municipal custodians and mechanics, workers at the water treatment plant and employees in the following divisions: building maintenance, parks, grounds, forestry, cemetery, highway, and water and sewer.

Piantedosi said the furlough plan is a larger concession than the 1 percent salary rollback accepted by other municipal unions earlier this year. Employees in those unions will receive 2.5 percent raises instead of the 3.5 percent cost-of-living adjustments originally in their contracts.

Piantedosi said the 1 percent rollback is the equivalent of just three furlough days.

Getting the same amount of work done with less people will be a challenge, he said.

"We're going to make it work," Piantedosi said. "We're scheduling that in a way that doesn't create any major problems with the operations."

Piantedosi said American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees members have the option of taking their furloughs in half and full-day increments or by working a 38-hour workweek every week between Nov. 1 and June 30.

The furlough agreement leaves Andover firefighters as the only municipal employee group that has not agreed to a pay concession this year.

In September, firefighters union President Thomas Agnew said a plan to accept a 1 percent salary rollback fell apart after a grievance with the town over ladder truck staffing was not resolved.

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