Fort Dodge workers who were once represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees will keep the benefits of their union contract through the end of this year as a result of City Council action Monday.

The council voted unanimously without discussion to do that.

The move applies to vacation, sick leave, holidays, family medical time, funeral leave and compensatory time/overtime.

The former union members will switch to the city’s benefits plan for non-union employees on Jan. 1.

The wage scale for the former AFSCME employees is already the same as that for non-union employees, so the workers will not see a change in pay structure, Jamie Anderson, the city’s human resources director, wrote in a report to the council.

The change impacts employees in the Public Works and Public Areas departments, water meter technicians, account clerks and police operations clerks.

The root cause of the change is a state law enacted in 2017.

Among other things, that state law requires regular retention and recertification elections for municipal union members to determine if their bargaining unit will remain in place.

Under the state law, a majority of union members, not a majority of those voting, must vote yes for a union to remain in place. Union members who do not vote are counted as no votes.

Last month, the Iowa Employment Appeal Board conducted a retention and recertification election for the local AFSCME union. The vote failed. The union was decertified on Nov. 12.