Wednesday, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo ratified a five-year agreement with Civil Service Employees Association-represented state executive branch employees. The deal was initially agreed on in late June, but it needed member approval.
CSEA is the largest public-sector union in New York, representing more than 60,000 state employees.
In a statement, Cuomo said the deal was balanced for both sides involved in negotiations.
“This contract is a fair deal for New York and for the more than 60,000 hardworking public servants that are the backbone of state government and enable it to work for New Yorkers,” said Cuomo. “I thank CSEA’s leadership for negotiating in good faith, and I am proud this agreement was overwhelmingly ratified by their membership and that I was able to sign legislation enacting it into law. This agreement represents another important step in our efforts to maintain New York’s outstanding workforce, and I look forward to continuing to work together to move this state forward.”
The current five-year agreement between Cuomo and the CSEA includes yearly 2 percent increases with retroactive pay, modest increases to health insurance copayments, double-time overtime pay in the Office of Mental Health and the Office for People with Developmental Disabilities to control excessive mandated overtime in that sector and improvements to the longevity payment structure.
CSEA’s members had been working without a contract since March 2016, when their previous five-year contract ended. That deal, which was struck on the back of the financial crash/recession in 2008, included two years without pay raises. In 2010, then Gov. David Paterson instituted furloughs in an emergency spending bill that would have forced 100,000 state workers to take one unpaid day off per week. The furlough would last until the state got out of the red. They would eventually reach their deal a year later.
CSEA President Danny Donohue said that the wait from March 2016 without a contract until now was worth it for this deal.
“CSEA’s negotiating team worked tirelessly to secure a well-rounded agreement that provides hard-earned cost-of-living increases while keeping health insurance expenses reasonable for working families,” said Donohue in a statement. “This contract is the product of members negotiating as a team for what is fair, and it recognizes the exceptional value of our members’ innumerable contributions across the state. Our dedicated public-sector employees are the often-unrecognized backbone of our communities.”
