State Employees’ Union Accepts Wage and Benefits Concessions
By THOMAS KAPLAN
Published: August 16, 2011 - New York Times
ALBANY — Members of New York’s largest union of state employees, in a
begrudging acknowledgment of the increasingly hostile mood toward public
workers, have agreed to accept major wage and benefits concessions sought by
Gov. Andrew
M. Cuomo.
The union, the Civil Service Employees Association, announced late Monday
night that its members had voted by about 60 percent to 40 percent to approve
the contract agreement that the governor and union leaders struck in June.
The ratification was a critical victory for Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat whose plan
to close the state’s budget gap relied in large part on a bet that state
employees would be willing to stomach a freeze on wages and an increase in the
cost of health benefits in return for safeguarding their jobs.
The union’s president, Danny Donohue, said in a statement: “These are not
ordinary times, and C.S.E.A. worked hard to reach an agreement that we believed
would be in everyone’s best interest. C.S.E.A. members agree that this contract
is reasonable and responsible for the long term and shows that C.S.E.A. members
will do what is right for the good of all New Yorkers.”
Savings from the five-year contract are expected to total $73 million this
fiscal year, part of the $450 million in cuts that Mr. Cuomo’s budget counted on
extracting from the state work force. And the governor’s office projected that
if other unions agreed to the same terms total savings for the state would
amount to $1.6 billion over five years.
Beyond the savings, the ratification also goes a long way toward validating
Mr. Cuomo’s strategy for dealing with public workers, tens of thousands more of
whom will vote as early as next month on whether to agree to their own
concessions.
In labor negotiations, the governor took a firm stance. He demanded
significant financial concessions and was not shy about threatening layoffs to
gain leverage.
At the same time, he did not attack collective bargaining or speak about the
unions with any kind of hostility, unlike some other governors seeking to cut
work-force costs, like Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Chris Christie in New
Jersey.
“This is a big, big win — a win for the union and a win for the people of the
state,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “The union avoided layoffs, and the state
is financially stronger. I’m pleased that our approach of labor and management
working together is vindicated.”
The announcement, made shortly before midnight, capped a day of suspense at
the Capitol. Union leaders worked more than 12 hours counting paper ballots that
had been mailed in over the last month by union members, who, along with aides
to Mr. Cuomo and other officials, spent the day wondering what the final tally
would show.
Nearly 30,000 of the union’s 66,000 members voted.
The contract’s approval could encourage the state’s other major
public-employee union, the Public Employees Federation, to approve its own,
nearly identical deal with Mr. Cuomo when it is put to a vote next month. And it
will bolster the governor’s case as he seeks concessions from other, smaller
unions in coming months.
The workers’ willingness to accept the contract’s cuts could also provide Mr.
Cuomo with some political relief.
As he urged workers to do their part in helping the state rein in spending,
Mr. Cuomo found himself increasingly at odds with organized labor, a traditional
ally for a Democratic chief executive.
No organized campaign emerged among members of the Civil Service Employees
Association who were dissatisfied with the contract.
But its passage remained no certainty because of the scope of the proposed
cuts. The agreement calls for a freeze on base wages for three years, followed
by 2 percent annual raises in the contract’s last two years. The union’s last
contract offered 3 percent raises for three years and a 4 percent raise in the
final year.
Mr. Cuomo, mindful of the failure of other recent labor deals, also stopped
short of avowing complete confidence that the Civil Service Employees
Association’s members would sign off on the agreement.
His first labor deal, with a small union of law enforcement officers, was
rejected in May, and in June public workers in Connecticut rejected their
proposed contract, throwing that state’s budget into turmoil.
But in New York, the prospect of layoffs — Mr. Cuomo said he would have to
eliminate as many as 9,800 jobs if workers refused to make concessions —
appeared to frighten union members into accepting a contract they might in other
years have considered unthinkable. The contract agreement protects union members
from broad-based layoffs for two years, and union leaders focused their
ratification pitch largely around that promise of job security during difficult
financial times.
In fact, hundreds of workers were only days away from losing their jobs when
the 56,000-member Public Employees Federation agreed to its deal with Mr. Cuomo
last month, averting the impending layoffs. On Thursday, the union’s executive
board approved the contract agreement, which will be sent to union members for
consideration in September.
“There were no good choices,” the union’s president, Kenneth Brynien, wrote
to members after the board’s vote. “In the past, contract negotiations achieved
significant gains for our members. Unfortunately, the state of the economy, the
will of the state’s political leaders and public sentiment have created an
environment where the services our members provide are undervalued.”