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By KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House bureau
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - With a House vote on the proposed $7.7 billion budget a day away, organized labor is leading a "fight back'' campaign at the State House to try to head off the suspension of a treasured perk for Rhode Island's state employees: automatic longevity bonuses.
Flyers popping up all over the State House urge workers to call their local legislators and "ask them to oppose proposals that take away our ability to negotiate longevity and retiree medical benefits.''
"Even though our pension contribution was not increased,'' the flyer distributed by Council 94, American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees says, "new attacks were leveled against our bargaining rights.''
As it stands, the proposed budget contains the $25.3 million required to provide state workers, in July, with their second 3 percent raise within the last six months.
Their last raise, in January, originally had been scheduled for July 2010, but delayed as part of a concessions agreement with former Gov. Donald Carcieri, in which they won a no-layoff guarantee.
Governor Chafee's own budget proposal would have given the state workers the second of their two back-to-back 3 percent raises in July, but also raised the workers' contribution to the state pension fund -- for the first time since 1995 -- from 8.75 percent to 11.75 percent of their pay.
The alternative crafted by House Democratic leaders would provide the workers with a raise, but end the payment of longevity bonuses to state workers every five years or so at the point their labor contracts expire, or sooner if they are non-union.
The bonuses provide the workers with permanent increases in their base pay, of up to 20 percent.
But this was not the only target of the "fight back'' campaign by the largest state employees union.
The lawmakers also want municipal and state employees enroll in Medicare as soon as they are eligible. The flyer says: "This change could alter existing retiree benefits and interfere with the union's ability to negotiate retiree health benefits.''
The flyer says: "Protect your collective bargaining rights.''
It also lists "four steps to fight back'' Among them: "Call your legislators today....Ask them to oppose proposals that take away our ability to negotiate longevity and retiree medical benefits.''
Nobody at the top ranks of state government today remembers exactly when longevity pay began. The earliest mention that State Personnel Administrator Anthony Bucci has been able to find was in a 1969 labor contract. He also found a 1940s-era budget document that provided some insight into the mindset at that time.
It said: "The scale of salaries paid to most state employees is on a lower level than that of private industry and the federal government. There is considerable competition for skilled and technical employees. From time to time, adjustments and compensation have to be made in the case of certain key employees in order to retain them."
While there have been some tweaks over the years, this is the way longevity pay works now for most state workers:
After five years on the job, their salaries automatically increase by 5 percent. After 11 years, longevity pay increases their base salaries by a total of 10 percent; after 15 years, a total of 15 percent; after 20 years, a total of 17.5 percent and after 25 years, a total of 20 percent.
As an example, the salary paid a hypothetical $45,000 state worker would have increased to $46,350 with the 3-percent raise that state workers got in January, to $48,667 with a 5-percent longevity increase in March, and to $50,127 with the next promised 3-percent raise in July. For this worker, that would translate into $5,127 in raises, after a run of deferred-pay days.
State officials estimate that at least 1,773 state workers will qualify for a longevity bump in the next year.
These bonuses are a part of a salary tab that is growing, despite big cutbacks in the size of the state workforce, from $779 million in the year that ended on June 30, 2010, to $835.9 million this year to a projected $867.9 million in the year that begins July 1.
In his budget proposal, Governor Chafee called for eliminating longevity pay for employees in the state Department of Education, who are already under a different formula that makes them wait 10 years for their first 5-percent boost, and another 10 years for their next bump.
He proposed the repeal at the request of state Education Commissioner Deborah Gist, who advocates "performance-bonuses" instead for 32 non-union employees within her department, the Rhode Island School for the Deaf and the William M. Davies Jr. Career-Technical High School. House and Senate budget writers took the proposal another step.
When Chafee was asked earlier this year if he had considered repeal of longevity bonuses for all state workers, he said: "Yes, I have considered it," in part, because people outside government looking at these automatic raises "just don't understand."
He said this was not the year to tackle the issue, but "there is an opportunity when the contracts come up. They are all coming up."
Longevity pay has its defenders. "We believe it is grounded on the idea of retaining experienced state employees, and we believe it is a good thing for efficient and effective state government," said Council 94 president J. Michael Downey earlier this year.
