Two state employee union locals have voted against accepting the concessions and labor savings agreement with the Malloy administration -- becoming the first ones to do that after five bargaining units had approved it.
The 45,000 unionized state employees are represented by 15 unions, 14 of which need to ratify the deal for it to be approved. Those 15 unions are divided into 34 total bargaining units -- and ratification votes, unit by unit, will not be completed until June 24.
The two locals to reject the settlement, in voting Wednesday for which results became known Thursday, according to the source, are:
--Local 1565 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, one of three locals that make up AFSCME's bargaining unit for Department of Correction employees.
--and AFSCME local 749, representing clerical and other "non-professional" employees such as court reporters in the state Judicial Branch and Division of Criminal Justice. Local 749 is a bargaining unit by itself.
They are early results, and will be calculated as part of the overall total for AFSCME employees in the state. AFSCME has a total of eight bargaining units. And AFSCME, as a whole, is one of the 15 state employee unions -- 14 of which must approve the concessions and savings agreement to avoid what Gov. Dannel Malloy has said could be as many as 7,500 layoffs.
Larry Dorman, an AFSCME official who is a spokesman for the state employee unions' bargaining coalition, would not confirm or deny the reported results.
He did issue this statement: "We have three Locals - 1565, 387 and 391 - who comprise the NP-4 Corrections Bargaining Unit within AFSCME. Local 1565 voted and counted results. Local 387 is voting today. The third union within NP-4 Corrections, Local 391, doesn't vote until June 22-23. Therefore I'm not confirming any results out of respect for the fact that other correctional union members are voting today and next week. Statewide, the completed results thus far show strong support the agreements."