PEF Board Gives Thumbs-Up To Tentative Pact

By REUVEN BLAU

The Public Employees Federation executive board Feb. 20 resoundingly approved the union's four-year settlement with the Spitzer administration that provides 13 percent in raises.

Ballots were mailed to PEF members after the 91 to 11 vote in favor of the agreement, which also more than doubles the location pay for employees assigned to the downstate area.

Ballots Due April 10

The union's more-than 58,000 members in the professional, scientific and technical unit of the state workforce must return their ballots to the American Arbitration Association by April 10. The vote will be tallied the following day.

The proposed agreement with the state's second-largest public-employee union announced Feb. 5 is consistent in its cost to the state with the Civil Service Employees Association contract negotiated last October. The tentative contract would run from April 2, 2007 to April 1, 2011.

PEF members would receive a 3-percent raise retroactive to April 2, 2007. The proposed contract also includes two more 3-percent hikes effective April 1, 2008 and April 1, 2009 and a 4-percent raise on April 1, 2010.

If the deal is ratified, effective April 1 the annual downstate location pay differential would increase to $1,850, up from $1,302. That figure would jump to $3,026 on Oct. 1. The Mid-Hudson adjustment would increase to $1,000 on April 1 and to $1,513 on Oct. 1.

The deal also includes some "modest" increases in members' health-care costs, according to the state.