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Nearly 3,500 state workers will stay on the job after the state’s second- largest public-employee union overwhelmingly passed a new austerity contract — reversing the rank-and-file’s rejection five weeks earlier of a similar proposal.
Facing layoffs that were to begin today, members of the Public Employees Federation ratified the four-year contract by a record 70-30 percent — 27,718 to 11,645, union officials announced yesterday.
The new contract freezes basic wages for three years, with a 2 percent raise in the fourth; requires furlough days, this year and next, to be repaid at the end of the pact; and increases workers’ health-insurance premium contributions.
Gov. Cuomo, who had warned the state needed $75 million to $80 million in workforce savings this fiscal year through either concessions or layoffs, called the ratification “great news.”
“This shows that collaboration works,” he said. “I believe we’ve been probably more productive than most situations where it got combative.
“Cooler heads prevailed, and I think there’s a lesson in these times. These are times of hyperbole and rhetoric, emotion and fear and frustration . . . [but] there are very few problems we can’t solve as New Yorkers, when we come to the table together and we look to work toward a mutually beneficial resolution.”
PEF President Kenneth Brynien said his members “are helping to resolve a fiscal crisis for which they were not responsible.”
He said tough economic times make New Yorkers “more dependent” on PEF’s “vital services” than ever.
Despite the wage freezes, workers will continue to get longevity raises.
Pledging to pursue pension reform next year, Cuomo said he was “surprised at the margin” — which the union called the most lopsided ever for a PEF contract.
“The contracts weren’t that different,” Cuomo said. “I think the environment changed.”
The layoffs were originally scheduled to take effect last month after the initial contract rejection, but Cuomo postponed them to give the 55,000-member union a chance to vote on the new proposal.