(Updated, 5:30 p.m.)
PROVIDENCE – The leaders of the state’s largest public employees union reversed course late Friday and agreed to schedule a vote by rank-and-file members on a deal with the Carcieri administration that would avoid worker layoffs or a shutdown of state government in exchange for lower pay, the governor’s office said.
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The union officials, who represent about two dozen local bargaining units of Council 94, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, made the decision in a private meeting Friday afternoon at the organization’s headquarters in North Providence.
The decision comes two days after the same officials voted to reject the agreement because of concerns about Gov. Donald L. Carcieri’s demand for greater flexibility in reassigning workers.
Although Council 94 subsequently called on the governor to return to the bargaining table, Carcieri said he was done negotiating and planned to proceed with layoffs – a threat that apparently changed the union leaders’ minds.
“I am pleased that the presidents of Council 94 have made the decision to allow their members a chance to vote on this agreement,” Carcieri said in a statement after the announcement. “It is my goal to keep people working, and this agreement will give state employees job security.”
J. Michael Downey, Council 94’s president, told WJAR-TV that the union’s leaders decided it was unlikely they would be able to wrangle a better deal from Carcieri, a Republican.
“The governor said there’s two chances of that happening: slim to none,” Downey said.
The agreement would save roughly $36 million, which represents slightly more than half the $67.8 million hole in the 2009-10 state budget that the General Assembly ordered Carcieri to deal with when lawmakers passed it in June. The governor’s savings plan also calls for withholding payments to cities and towns, among other provisions.
After Carcieri announced the shutdown plans last month, state workers’ unions responded by immediately challenging the proposal in court, and the R.I. Supreme Court barred the first scheduled shutdown day. Carcieri then threatened to lay off as many as 1,000 state workers. State and union officials have been negotiating the details of an agreement since then.
A proposal was tentatively agreed upon earlier this month, and the two sides told the court they expected a deal to be in place by the end of next week. However, union leaders twice postponed a vote on the pact due to concerns about the job-shifting provision, then rejected it outright on Wednesday, before reversing course Friday and agreeing to schedule a vote by rank-and-file members.
The tentative agreement calls for state employees to work unpaid for eight days this fiscal year and another four next year. In addition, a 3 percent raise scheduled for July 1, 2010, would be delayed for six months.
In return, the Carcieri administration has agreed not to order layoffs, shutdowns or furloughs through June 2011. (Carcieri’s term ends in January 2011.) Workers also would be able to recover at least some of the lost wages down the road.
A number of other unions already agreed to submit the agreement to their rank-and-file members this week in spite of Council 94’s leaders’ rejection of it Wednesday. They are scheduled to hold votes next Friday, Oct. 2.
The governor’s office said the R.I. Department of Administration will assist Council 94 and other state unions with “information and assistance as they go through the ratification process.”
Council 94’s agreement to schedule a vote is no guarantee that it will win approval, however.
Last year, the union’s membership voted down a contract their leaders negotiated with Carcieri, and the two sides engaged in a bitter, months-long battle before a new four-year contract was finally ratified in October.
