SEA Members Mull Contract After Leaders Urge Rejecting It

Union negotiators aren’t enthusiastic about the deal they’ve cut with Governor Lynch even though they spent many months negotiating it.

Diana Lacey, a lead negotiator, says it was simply time to put the deal forward to union members.

We got the absolute best deal we felt we could get from Governor Lynch. We pushed this absolutely as far as we can. We understand that he’s going to need to proceed with the layoffs and we have run the gauntlet with this. The bargaining team has gone as far as they can with this.

If members vote for the deal, they would approve 19 unpaid furlough days and a wage freeze in 2011.

If they vote against the deal, they would probably trigger layoffs for 750 state workers.

One Health and Human Services employee who didn’t want to identify herself says she agrees with union negotiators that they can’t get anything more for workers.

I think it is the best they’re going to do. I think the governor he’s running it like a business, which is the way it should be and if there’s a deficit there’s a deficit and you have to close the gap.

There’s no doubt word of 750 job cuts has caught the attention of many union members.

Still union leaders are urging members to reject the deal.

They say that’s because the contract has no guarantee the state won’t cut additional jobs over the next two years.

This man at the Department of Health and Human Services in Concord who wouldn’t give his name said he sympathized with the union bargaining position but was probably going to vote for the deal anyway.

I think some people worked a long time to get some things in place for us and I think they’re not feeling good about so quickly letting that go down the tubes so I understand the ambivalence. But on the other hand I wouldn’t want to see or hear about people losing jobs including this one who has four kids so I can see both sides.

Another union member who wouldn’t give his mane said he agreed with his leaders that Governor Lynch would make further job cuts, even after getting concessions such as wage freezes and unpaid furloughs.

He claimed the Governor Lynch had already taken too much from his department, Health and Human Services.

So we’ve had layoffs, we’ve have a freeze, so we’ve lost 300 positions in DHHS, little known public fact through freeze. Same effect as a layoff and yet there a loopholes in the contract that allow layoffs through restructuring.

A spokesman for Governor Lynch says union members should know if they vote for the deal with furloughs, their jobs would be secure in most circumstances.

Colin Manning says that’s because the contract has a broad prohibition against further layoffs.

He says there are only a very limited set of circumstances that would trigger more job cuts.

If a program is eliminated or a facility is closed or the federal government cuts funding for a program obviously we’re not going to be able to keep those positions filled. But there is a provision that prohibits additional layoffs if projections come in below projections or something like that.

Union members have about two weeks to vote on the tentative contract.

If a majority rejects the deal, the Governor has indicated layoff notices would start going out in early October.