Three of the five Berwyn Public Works employees laid off last month returned to work Wednesday, Sept. 3 after the city reached an agreement with union representatives.

Teamsters Local 705 Business Representative Bill Sullivan and Mayor Michael O’Connor said the agreement was the result of several meetings between the union and city officials. Sullivan said the union agreed to put on hold eight grievances it filed against the city in exchange for letting the employees return to work.

The five public works employees, along with several other city workers, were laid off in June in an attempt to save the city money while it faces an estimated $2 million budget shortfall. In all, 12 jobs were cut, saving the city about $250,000.

O’Connor said three public works employees went to work Wednesday. Another employee was moved from public works to the Berwyn Water Department, and the fifth is on medical leave.

The employees were given a list of projects, which include street sweeping, garbage pick-up and sidewalk power-washing. The tasks need to be completed by Saturday, Nov. 1, as preparation for winter. After Nov. 1, the city will evaluate the work and, if it is deemed suitably completed, city officials will propose another list of projects for the department. If not, the agreement could break down, and the workers could be left without jobs once again.

The projects will take the place of the department’s work of cutting down and trimming trees, which has substantially backlogged in recent years. The city has  hired Grayslake-based Landscape Concepts to try to catch up on tree work.

The private-sector contract was the focus of at least one of the grievances filed by the union, Sullivan said, because it gave a union job to a nonunion company. O’Connor said the city had to outsource the work because the public works did not have the necessary equipment to handle the backlog of tree requests. Meanwhile, other city services were lagging, O’Connor said, and the public works will now focus on those services.

“It seems like a win-win for everybody,” O’Connor said. “We’re going to have to find some ways to save some money, but we also have to keep the city looking nice.”