Labor HQ
Photo by Steve Kotchko
Posted 5/11/09
State employees had some feisty fights with the administrations of former governors John Rowland and Lowell Weicker, so when the current recession created a huge deficit in the state budget and Republican Gov. Jodi Rell said labor concessions would be necessary to help fill the hole, some observers expected a major new battle. However, unless things come totally unglued, it appears there will be labor peace. Negotiations for those concessions produce something just short of a labor of love, with both sides agreeing the result is in everyone’s best interest.
Last Friday, the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), announced state workers voted by a 3 to 1 margin to accept a series of labor concessions they claim can save the state more than $700 million. Twenty-nine of the 31 bargaining units in SEBAC approved the deal. Two other units, representing Department of Correction workers, have yet to reach an accord with their agency, and that’s a story in itself.
The concessions include higher co-pays on healthcare, a one-year wage freeze, and seven furlough days spread over two years. In return, state employees receive a no-layoff promise from the Rell administration. Even if lawmakers and Rell agree to streamlining or eliminating state agencies, affected workers are guaranteed jobs in other departments. An early retirement provision, also part of the deal, likely will open up many job positions.
State employee leaders have said for months that “public service workers”, as they prefer to call themselves would step up to the plate and make concessions for the good of the state. “This was not an easy process, but our members saw the need to protect public services for the people of this state and wanted to be part of the solution,” said Dan Livingston, the lead union negotiator for SEBAC.
Gov. Rell said she was pleased by the accord. “Our negotiations were conducted in a spirit of cooperation and respect and we have achieved a tremendously productive result,” she said. “I thank everyone involved.”
The Democrat-controlled legislature is expected to approve the labor agreement this week. Democratic leaders hope to get this key piece of the deficit remedy in place, as they begin the final rounds of their own negotiations with the governor on the state budget for the next two-year cycle that begins July 1st.
Despite the collective sigh of relief over this labor deal, it is not all peaches and cream. Those lingering Correction Department employee negotiations will be difficult. Union officials described the mood as “very bitter” and claimed Commissioner Theresa Lantz refuses to recognize the state is in a fiscal crisis.
If prison employees can’t reach a deal with the department, they would not be fully protected by the “no-layoff” provision in the overall agreement, though observers say it is unlikely the Correction Department or the Rell administration could afford to make correction guard layoffs considering the level of overcrowding in state prisons.
Though they acknowledge they had no authority to negotiate state budget priorities with Rell, (except for their own issues), SEBAC officials said now that state employees have offered concessions to ease the deficit, they feel other sectors of the economy should contribute.
Livingston appeared to voice support for tax increases included in the Democrats proposed state budget including a higher state income tax for the rich and a three-year 30% tax surcharge on fiscally-healthy corporations. “We hope we’ve provided an example so that others who can really afford to help—Connecticut’s wealthiest residents, and its largest corporations—will come forward and do their part as well.”