Posted on 06/17/2006 4:43:48 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
The state reached a three-year contract deal with its largest employees union on Saturday, avoiding a threatened strike by thousands of Department of Motor Vehicle workers, accountants, prison cooks and others responsible for the day-to-day operations of government.
The deal, which must be ratified by a majority vote of the union's members, would provide the first raise in nearly three years for the 87,000 members of Local 1000 of the Service Employees International Union.
The preliminary deal includes an 3.5 percent raise this year and another raise of up to four percent next year tied to the Consumer Price Index. It also includes a $1,000 signing bonus to make up for the pay increase employees would have gotten last year.
"It helps us catch up after three years without a wage increase and it protects important benefits like retirement and health," said Jim Hard, president of SEIU Local 1000.
Members of the union had worked under an expired contract for nearly a year and gone without raises for nearly three years as the state grappled with record deficits.
On Monday, the union announced that 85 percent of its members had voted to authorize a strike. Union leaders had threatened to strike as early as Thursday, the constitutional deadline for the Legislature to pass the budget, if a state spending plan had been approved without raises for its members.
Union leaders hoped the strike authorization - the union's first - would intensify negotiations as lawmakers worked to pass the state budget that is scheduled to take effect July 1.
The budget would not have affected the union's ability to continue negotiating, but union leaders said it was symbolically important to have a new contract before the budget is signed.
The Legislature has yet to pass the budget, with negotiations scheduled to continue on MondayThe union represents a diverse group of state workers, including information technology specialists, nurses and janitors. It is one of 17 state employees' unions whose contracts are up for negotiation this year.
Your tax dollars at work.
As my father would say... The UNIONS never fend my family!
fed
The only industry with increasing union membership - GOVERNMENT.
They'll need translators to explain it to the membership.....
-ccm
And not the only family to say that too!
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