Despite the rejection by two major bargaining units, union officials said Wednesday that they are not giving up that the four-year, no-layoff deal between Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and the state employee unions can still be ratified.
The rejections represented a huge blow to the Malloy administration's plan to close the state's budget gap with an estimated $1.6 billion in savings and concessions over two years.
The "no'' votes were cast by the 4,500-member Connecticut Employees Union Independent, SEIU Local 511, which is also known as NP-2 and represents custodians, cooks, and others. In addition, the 3,800-member AFSCME unit known as P-2, which represents human and social service workers at the Department of Children and Families and other agencies, also rejected the deal.
Under the highly complicated union rules, a rejection by AFSCME - the largest union in the SEBAC coalition with 15,600 members - could sink the entire deal. P-2 is the third largest segment of AFSCME. Thousands of state employees will be casting ballots on Thursday and Friday.
"We are running behind, but we still have the 1,850 votes'' that will be cast by prison guards in NP-4 this week, said Larry Dorman, a union spokesman.
"We work for labor unions. We're optimists,'' said Matt O'Connor, another SEBAC spokesman.
Overall, 6 of the 15 SEBAC unions have voted in favor of the deal, while one - CEUI/SEIU - has voted against. Some state employees are already questioning whether there could be a re-vote, but the spokesmen said the question could not be answered until all the votes are counted.
But some people at the Capitol - with more than two days of voting remaining - are starting to assume that the overall deal will be rejected by the unions.
Malloy's senior advisor, Roy Occhiogrosso, ruled out a renegotiation with the unions if the overall deal collapses.
"I can't imagine that would happen,'' Occhiogrosso told reporters Wednesday. "There is no other negotiation that can take place.''
With the new fiscal year starting next week, Malloy and the Democratic-controlled state legislature would need to fill a projected budget gap of about $700 million in the first year of the new two-year budget. But Occhiogrosso said that would not include any increase in taxes beyond those that have already been negotiated, which amount to the largest tax increases in state history. The hikes in the state income tax on the state's wealthiest residents are retroactive to January 1, while other tax increases - such as a hike in the cigarette tax - will begin on Friday, July 1.
"Everything else is on the table,'' Occhiogrosso said. "Spending cuts, layoffs, cuts in municipal aid'' are possible.
Malloy says that as many as 7,500 layoffs are possible, but some insiders say that is unlikely at a time when the state is still recovering from a deep recession and unemployment remains high.