Editor’s note: This story was updated and expanded March 22 at 6:45 p.m.
Contract negotiations between the state and the union that represents Vermont state employees are at an impasse, and the parties have turned to the Vermont Labor Relations Board for resolution.
The Vermont State Employees’ Association and the Shumlin administration submitted their last best offers to the board late Monday — an unusual step in the biennial contract negotiation process. The union says it has been two decades since negotiations have been resolved by the board.
The crux of the conflict is the cost-of-living increases for nonmanagement workers in the next two-year contract.
Negotiations began in August and continued through the fall. Earlier this year, the two sides went to a fact finder, and a report was issued early this month.
The two sides were unable to come to an agreement after the fact finder’s report and will now look to the Labor Relations Board to make the decision.
The board has 30 days from the filing to respond. A hearing will be held on the last best offers. Under state law, the board is directed to select between the offers put forward by each party, without making any amendments.
Both the administration and the union agree that the contract should fully fund “step” pay increases. But the sides differ on how much of a raise employees in the nonmanagement unit should get across the board.
The administration’s last best offer proposes to increase the total expenditure for all state employees, including step increases, by 2.7 percent in the first year of the contract. The administration expects that step increases would account for 1.7 percent, an estimate based on historical figures. State employees across the board would get a 1 percent pay increase.
In the second year of the contract, the state proposes to increase the expenditure by 2.95 percent, also including step increases and a 1.25 percent across-the-board pay increase.
“The state opposes the implementation of any last best offer submitted by VSEA in addition to or in a greater amount than referenced in this submission,” the state wrote in a cover letter signed by co-negotiators Joseph McNeil and John Berard.
Secretary of Administration Justin Johnson said the negotiations have gone to the labor board because the two parties have been “a little bit too far apart.”
“We’re just in a place where we have a difference of opinion about what’s reasonable,” Johnson said.
He said there was disagreement about the increase in the cost of living in recent years. He pointing to low gas prices and the low inflation rate.
“The challenge for me is we’re trying to build a budget that is within our means to meet,” Johnson said.
The governor’s recommended budget included for $6 million for a 1 percent across-the-board raise, Johnson said. If the board goes with the VSEA’s last best offer, lawmakers must budget an additional $6 million, he said.
Meanwhile, the VSEA seeks an increase of 2 percent in the first year plus step increases. In year two, the union would like a 2.25 percent increase on top of step increases. The union also disputes the administration’s assertion that the step raises amount to a 1.7 percent total increase, believing they will add up to less than that.
Steve Howard, executive director for the VSEA, said Tuesday that the union tried to negotiate and finalize a contract so the process would be complete before lawmakers returned for the legislative session.
The House Appropriations Committee has already voted out its version of the fiscal year 2017 budget, and it is set to hit the floor this week. That means the board’s decision will likely come out when the budget is in the Senate.
“We feel that we did our best to try to get to a fair contract that didn’t put the Legislature in the position it is now,” Howard said.
Howard said the union crafted the last best response based on the report by the fact finder — who, he emphasized, was an independent, external player brought in to analyze the situation.
VSEA president Dave Bellini said in a statement that the two sides “were really not that far apart on the most important issue, which is wages.”
The fact finder’s report, he said, was fair.
“We asked the State to sit down and try to reach agreement, working with the fact finder’s report, but they decided to play politics for reasons no one was able to explain to VSEA negotiators and Teams,” Bellini said. “It felt mean-spirited.”
Bellini said VSEA did not want to go before the labor board “at this late stage of the negotiating process, and, honestly, we don’t need to be here, which is what’s so infuriating to a lot VSEA members.”
“There was a fair deal to be made here, but the state chose to fight, rather than negotiate,” Bellini said.
Tom Cheney, deputy commissioner for the Department of Human Resources, said the administration also drew on the fact finder’s report in drafting its final offer.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the VSEA’s last best offer.
