[T]he Vermont State Employees Association says the Shumlin administration has dealt the union “a slap in the face” with its last best offer.
The union for state employees has filed a motion with the Vermont Labor Relations Board asking for the dismissal of a Shumlin administration proposal that would give Vermont State Police lieutenants a lower pay increase than other state workers.
Vermont State Police lieutenants would get a 0.5 percent increase, instead of a 1 percent across-the-board cost of living increase in each year, under the Shumlin administration’s proposal.
The state’s last-best offer was filed with the board on Monday. In it, the state officials increased its offer of a 0 percent cost of living increase to a 1 percent increase in the first year of the contract and a 1.25 percent increase in the second year. Including step increases, the total pay increases would be 2.7 percent in the first year and 2.95 percent in the second year.
The VSEA seeks an increase of 2 percent in the first year, plus step increases for a total of 3 percent. In year two, the union would like a 2.25 percent increase on top of step increases, or 3.5 percent.
Dave Bellini, president of VSEA, said the discrepancy between the pay increases for state workers in the nonmanagement, corrections and supervisory unit members was “a slap in the face.”
“It’s almost as if the State did not study its own bargaining history with VSEA, because, if they had, they would have learned that VSEA successfully challenged a similar last-minute contract proposal alteration by the State in 1996 and won,” explains VSEA President Dave Bellini. “We’re very concerned that this newly introduced proposal to pay VSEA’s State Police Lieutenants a different, lesser, wage could open the door to multi-tiered wage and benefit packages. Not to mention, these are State Police Lieutenants, and the Administration’s proposal to give them a smaller raise is just wrong. It’s a slap in the face.”
VSEA filed a motion asking for the board to dismiss the Shumlin administration’s contract “last-best-offer” to thousands of members who belong to VSEA’s three bargaining units.
Gary Hoadley, VSEA’s labor relations director, says in the motion that the parties have “consistently negotiated across the board or cost of living increases that applied the same percentage increase to all unit employees” and all executive branch employees.
“VSEA leaders and members have held firm to the principle that they would not accept two-tiered or multi-tiered pay or benefit packages that treat one group of unit members differently than another,” according to the motion authored by Timothy Belcher, general counsel for VSEA.
Justin Johnson, the secretary of the Agency of Administration said he would not comment directly on the back and forth.
“I can’t imagine we’d agree with the motion,” Johnson said. “We have a process in play and we are letting it play out.”
The union describes the wage discrepancy as a “poison pill” and said in its motion to dismiss that the proposal “introduces a substantial new dispute that would have been highly controversial even standing on its own, but that also has the potential, if it were accepted, of fundamentally changing how wage negotiations are conducted in all three units.”
A public hearing on the last best offers will be held April 7.
The last time the union and a governor went to the labor board to decide a last best offer was 1996.
Maribeth Spellman, commissioner of the Department of Human Resources, is taking the lead on negotiations for the Shumlin administration. In a statement, she said she could not comment on the motion filed by VSEA.
“It is my expectation that this motion is just the first in many filings where the parties will be advancing the factual and legal arguments they believe support their position,” Spellman said. “It is up to the Board to analyze the merits of these arguments, and it would be imprudent, as a party in this matter, to comment further.”
Editor’s note: This story was updated with comments from Spellman on March 27.
