[T]he state Labor Relations Board has decided in favor of Gov. Phil Scott’s administration in negotiations that began last summer over the coming two-year contract with state employees.
After failing to strike a deal at the bargaining table, and again after bringing in a mediator, and then again after bringing in a fact finder, the dispute over pay increases was taken to the labor board with both sides offering their last best offer.
The Vermont State Employees Association, which represents non-management, corrections and supervisory unit bargaining teams, posted the news to its website with a cartoon of a man being impaled with a giant screw.
“This is a very tough pill to swallow for sure,” VSEA President Dave Bellini was quoted as saying in a statement. “It’s a sad day for Vermont state employees.”
The statement said that state employee negotiators put a “very fair” deal on the table that an independent fact finder said was a “reasonable offer.” The labor board, however, decided by a vote of 2-1 that the administration’s proposal was more reasonable.
Adam Greshin, commissioner of the Vermont Department of Finance and Management, said the labor board’s decision was “a good and fair result for state workers and a good and fair result for Vermont taxpayers.”
“Vermont state workers will receive a wage increase in line with the majority of other workers in Vermont and continue to enjoy among the best benefits in the country,” Greshin said in an interview. “We believe Vermont taxpayers are also fairly treated.”
Greshin said the increase in wages and benefits “all in” is 2.33 percent, on a par with wage increases in the private sector.
The union says wages will go up by 1.35 percent at the beginning of each year. The employees’ union proposed a 2 percent annual wage increase.
The decision means that health care benefit costs for current employees and retirees will go up for everything from deductibles to office visits to copay for MRIs.
“Couple this with the state’s paltry wage increase, and there are going to be more and more state employees and retirees’ struggling even harder in the next two years to make ends meet,” Bellini is quoted as saying.
Steve Howard, executive director of the VSEA, said for state employees at the lowest pay grade, some of whom make less than $15 per hour, Vermont will be a less affordable place to live.
“Vermont should be a model employer,” Howard said. “This decision says what they really feel. They like to talk about front line workers in speeches but they don’t have their backs. Our members have expressed sincere disappointment with Phil Scott. He seemed like a working class guy who cared about real people and this makes him look like a typical politician.”
The dispute was sent to the labor board after the administration dismissed a report from a fact finders brought in to help reach a deal. Employees said they were prepared to accept the report, but that the administration had shown no interest in seriously considering it.
Howard said one of the members of the board was replaced by an appointee of the governor in February and that shifted the balance of the board. He said that for that reason the “process seemed a bit rigged.”
The Vermont Labor Relations Board was also the final arbiter in the last negotiations between the executive branch, under then-Gov. Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, and workers in 2016.
There are 8,374 state workers, according to a January 2018 Vermont Department of Human Resources report. Average pay for classified workers is $62,195. Average total compensation, including health care and retirement, is $93,340. Employees pay 20 percent of health care premiums.
