Tentative CSEA contract terms outline pay hikes
Deal, awaiting union’s vote, could cost $350M through the fiscal year
Last week, amid a flurry of end-of-session negotiations, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state reached tentative terms on a new contract with the Civil Service Employees Association but offered few details on the agreement.
Now, documents released by the governor’s office flesh out the deal estimated to cost the state $350 million through this fiscal year, the end of March 2023, covering 63,000 workers. It would be retroactive from April 2021.
The deal is broken into two parts: $220 million for 53,000 workers in CSEA’S collective bargaining unit and $130 million for 10,000 workers outside of the unit, such as management, according to a legal memo quietly released by the governor’s office.
Workers in the union are proposed a five-year deal from April 2021 to March 2026. It includes 2 percent raises the first two years and then 3 percent annual raises the final three years of the tentative contract. Employee salaries for 2022 would range from about $27,000 to $111,000 per year, according to the program bill that lays out salaries for the range of steps and tiers.
The deal for nonunion members is only for one year.
The hiring rate for nonunion members is between $28,000 and $158,000, but it also includes management.
The proposed terms also lay out salary ranges for supervisors of correctional facilities, which are substantially higher at correction facilities with at least 400 inmates, $106,000 versus $136,000, as the base pay.
The deal must still be ratified by the union. A spokesman for CSEA, Matthew Cantore, declined to comment ahead of any actions by union members.
“This agreement is a winwin for CSEA members and the state of New York,” Hochul said in a statement last week.
CSEA President Mary E. Sullivan said, in the statement released by the governor’s office, that the “tentative agreement recognizes the dedicated CSEA members who kept this state running during the entire COVID pandemic and continue to do so every day.”
Hochul has pledged support for powerful unions in the state during her campaigning for a full first term as governor.
Prior to Attorney General Letitia James dropping out of the race for governor, there was a perceived high-level competition for major union endorsements between Hochul and James. Hochul, in the absence of a James campaign, has picked up an overwhelming majority of influential labor endorsements.
She faces moderate U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-long Island, and progressive New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams in a primary in three weeks.