2/19/03

PEF, GOER begin the salary battle

Since PEF’s PS&T contract team met with negotiators from the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (GOER) last week, union leaders are taking a firm stand on not accepting any zeroes in the new contract.

“The state should find a way to increase state employees’ pay, since it helped fund new contracts with New York City teachers, police, fire and transit workers that included salary increases of between 3.5 percent and 8 percent,” PEF President Roger Benson told reporters last week.

In the February 13 edition of the Daily Gazette, the director of GOER, George Madison, said the state’s employee unions, all of which have contracts that expire in April or June might have to wait another year for new contracts.

Madison added that Pataki’s spending plan for 2003-04 does not include funding for employee salary increases. “The way negotiations are shaping up, it’s going to be protracted,” he said.

The Gazette also reported that the governor’s spending plan proposed a 5 percent increase that employees and retirees would have to pay toward their health insurance premiums. The article further said, “depending on their number of years of service, those who retire in 2004 or later would pay up to 65 percent for family coverage and up to 50 percent for individual coverage under the Pataki plan.

According to the Gazette…John Currier, deputy director of the Office of Employee Relations, said steep increases for future retirees are unlikely to make it through contract negotiations.

“I doubt if it would be 50 percent. I doubt the unions would agree to it,” Currier said. “

State owes PEF members retroactive benefits; award worth up to $1.75 million

If you are a PEF member under the current PS&T contract and received standby on-call pay between April 1, 1999 and April 1, 2000, the state underpaid you.

An arbitrator ordered the state to pay employees under the contract retroactive standby on-call benefits and overtime meal benefits.

“This is the second largest arbitration award in PEF history. Thousands of our eligible members will receive retroactive payments,” said PEF President Roger Benson. “We estimate the total value of the award at $1.25 million to $1.75 million.”

Details on how this decision will be implemented will be posted on the PEF website when the union receives it. Also look for an article in the March issue of The Communicator.