The Civil Service Employees Association, the state’s largest public workers union, said it reached a tentative contract agreement with the state to avoid massive layoffs. CSEA, which represents 66,000 state employees, said the five-year deal would avert pending layoffs, but also freeze salaries for two years and require a five-day furlough for workers this year and four days of furlough in 2012. Workers would receive a $1,000 payment starting in 2013, with $225 of it to be paid in 2014. Workers would receive a 2 percent pay increase in both 2014 and 2015. The four unpaid furlough days next year would be reimbursed to workers in the final year of the contract. Gov. Andrew Cuomo was planning to move forward this week with layoffs. He vowed to lay off 9,800 workers if unions didn’t agree to $450 million in concessions.
-Story Courtesy of Press and Sun
