EVANS CITY — A month after borough council voted to recognize a streets department union, the borough's solicitor and the Teamsters disagree on whether it was valid.

The union ceased to be recognized in 2019, when Norman Nelson, a longtime streets employee, retired, leaving only one employee in the department. Betty Fischer, secretary-treasurer and principal officer of Teamsters Local Union 538, said the borough was within its rights to no longer recognize the union at that point.

“One person does not constitute a bargaining unit, per se,” Fischer said.

Where Fischer and Neva Stotler, the solicitor for Evans City, disagree, however, is in the process by which the union would regain recognition at this point following the hire of a second full-time streets employee in late 2019.

Fischer said the council's vote was valid as the employees do not have to follow the process for starting a union as if the contract, which expires Dec. 31, did not exist in the first place. The union was simply no longer recognized, rather than being dissolved or decertified by the state, she said, and the council could choose at any point to recognize it again.

But Stotler disagreed, saying the employees would have to ask for recognition.

“It (recognition) will be because the employees asked for it, not because council voted for it,” Stotler said.

She recognized that council already voted in favor of it, and said having employees petition would “not change the outcome,” but would follow what she believes to be the proper process.

Fischer said that despite which route any process takes, the union is valid.

“There is officially a union, whether they recognize it or not,” she said.