Courant Staff Writer Jon Lender contributed to this report.
As the drawn-out vote on a labor concession agreement came to a close late today, sources familiar with process said privately they are encouraged that the pact will pass this time around--an optimism based largely on overwhelming votes in favor of the agreement by three correction officer locals that had rejected it in June.
Spokesmen for the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition, an umbrella group for the 15 unions representing about 45,000 state workers, have refused to release any results. But The Courant has been able to obtain specific results for the three locals representing Department of Correction employees, who were among those most militantly opposed when the agreement first came up for a vote.
Those three correction locals of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal employees make up one of the 34 bargaining units across the state. According to multiple sources:
--Local 391, representing correction workers in northern Connecticut prisons, approved the SEBAC portion of the agreement, governing health care and retirement benefits for all 15 unions that represent 45,000 employees, by a vote of 959 to 389. Local 391 also approved the wage concessions portion of the settlement (which also provides for four years of no layoffs for existing employees) under the correction employees' bargaining unit's individual contract with the state by a vote of 1,094 to 249.
--Local 387, representing correction workers at the Cheshire correctional complex, voted 269 to 133 in favor of the SEBAC benefits portion of the settlement, and 300 to 104 into approve the wage concessions-no layoffs part of it, under the correction employees' bargaining unit's individual contract with the state.
--Local 1565, representing correction workers at prisons including the Garner and Corrigan-Radgowski correctional centers Newtown and Montville, respectively, voted 829-632 in favor of the SEBAC benefits portion of the settlement, and 1,082 to 378 in favor of the wage concessions-no layoffs part of it under the correction employees' bargaining unit's contract with the state.
The combined vote of the three locals in correction officers' bargaining unit was 2,057 to 1,154 in favor of the SEBAC portion, and 2,476 to 731 in favor of the wage concessions-no layoff portion.
Sources told Lender that the strong reversal encouraged union officials that AFSCME, the largest of all the state employee unions with about 16,000 total members, would vote as a whole to approve the settlement - after rejecting it the first time. Approval by AFSCME was widely believed to push the agreement over the top when results from all other unions are added in. Several of those other unions already approved deal the second time around -- and since the first rejection SEBAC has relaxed its rules to make ratification easier.
Another union, the Administrative and Residual Employees Union announced on its website that it, too, had approved the pact with 75 percent voting in favor.