Community college faculty members and supervisory judicial marshals have both approved the savings and concessions deal with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy - pushing the unions past the halfway point of the 34 units voting on the agreement, union sources said Tuesday.
The 200-member Federation of Technical College Teachers, Local 1942, agreed to a two-year pay freeze and the four-year, no-layoff provision that is a key part of an agreement that calls for an estimated $1.6 billion in savings over two years. Republican legislators, however, say that about $600 million of the savings are ill-defined.
The union includes librarians, counselors, coordinators and department chairs in the community college system. The long-running voting has now been completed at half of the units in the sprawling union system that covers about 45,000 unionized state employees. The voting is expected to be completed late Friday as many state employees will be casting ballots over the next three days.
The 50-member Supervisory Judicial Marshals union voted Tuesday night at a union hall in Hartford to approve the deal, which has been hailed by the Malloy administration and union leaders. They became the 18th of the 34 unions to sign the pact.
In addition, the judicial marshals in the 750-member International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 731, started voting Tuesday, but the voting is expected to continue Wednesday. The Connecticut state police will be voting on Wednesday and Thursday.
As the various provisions of the deal have become controversial, there have been numerous meetings during the past month to explain the details of the SEBAC deal. CSEA/SEIU Local 2001, which has about 3,900 state union members, alone has had more than 90 informational meetings since May 27.
"That's a lot of meetings,'' said union spokesman Matt O'Connor. "We've done the due diligence to get the word out and refute the lies of the Yankee Institute. We may have not known who was behind them'' until recently.
The running battle between the unions and the Hartford-based Yankee Institute continued Tuesday with more charges and countercharges. In his radio program on WTIC-AM, former Gov. John G. Rowland went back and forth with union spokesman Larry Dorman over the union's allegations that Yankee has been working to sabotage the union vote. The union has asked Attorney General George Jepsen to investigate its charges that Yankee has been involved in spreading disinformation about the SEBAC deal through the state employees' e-mail system.
"What evidence do you have that it's the Yankee Institute?'' Rowland asked Dorman on the program.
"We have a great deal of evidence,'' Dorman responded.
"So, hold on a second,'' Rowland said. "What specific evidence do you have? Do you have any? Yes or no?''
"We believe we do,'' Dorman responded, adding that the trail leads back to Yankee. "We believe it does. ... We believe it does, and that's why we've asked the attorney general to investigate.''
Dorman said that Yankee's designated reporter, Zachary Janowski, "actually manufactured and essentially pedaled his news.''
"We're asserting that the state e-mail system was accessed for the distribution of mass e-mails with employees whose names cannot be traced,'' Dorman said. "We believe, yes. We're asking the attorney general. ... We believe we have evidence that needs to be thoroughly examined.''
"Larry, Larry, Larry. Those are fudge words,'' Rowland interrupted. "If you have no evidence, it's not going to go beyond Friday'' when the union voting ends.