Below is a message from Local President Gregg Crerar about the Tentative Agreement reached for the new SUOAF contract. There will be a meeting for dues paying members on Friday, March 4, 2022 at 11:00 am to discuss the tentative agreement and to answer questions. An invitation for this online meeting will be sent out prior to the meeting to all dues paying members. If you are not currently a dues paying member and you wish to join in order to be a part of this meeting and the voting process, please complete the SUOAF Membership Card and contact one of your union officers as soon as possible.
_________________________
On behalf of the SUOAF Contract Negotiations Team, I am happy to inform you that after more than a year of negotiations with Management we have come to a tentative agreement on all subjects that were part of negotiations. Your Negotiation Team has spent countless hours in meetings – both as a team and with Management — to make sure that the results would be the best possible outcome. Our guiding principle was to preserve as many of our rights, benefits, and privileges as possible.
Simultaneous to our negotiations with Management on collective bargaining agreement language, SEBAC, the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition that represents all state employees on the matters of pension and healthcare, stepped in to negotiate a state-wide wage package. The SUOAF Negotiations Team feels the SEBAC was instrumental in obtaining a palatable economic package for all state employees.
So what happens next? I am in the process of working with your Chapter President to schedule a meeting between your chapter membership and the Negotiation Team. We are aiming to hold all five chapter meetings between March 1st-March 3rd. At that time, we will present in detail all changes to contract language and outline the financial package that SEBAC negotiated. There will be time for Q&A during each of these meetings. The following week, the tentative agreement package (language and economics) will be sent to the dues-paying membership for ratification. The vote will take place electronically. A simple majority vote of the membership ratifies the agreement. If ratified, the agreement will be sent to the legislature — both the House and the Senate — for a vote for ratification. This will be the first time in negotiations history that your legislator will vote on our contract. Therefore, if SUOAF ratifies the contract, it will be more important than ever for you to make a call to your legislator asking for his/her support of the agreement. To find your legislative representatives, click here.
I can’t begin to tell you how hard the Negotiations Team and in particular Kelly Rommel, our chief spokesperson and lead negotiator from Council 4, worked on your behalf. Please join me in thanking them the next time you see your representatives:
Gregg Crerar Local President
Kelly Rommel Staff Attorney for AFSCME/Council 4
Jon Derman BOR
Angelo DeCarlo BOR
Lisa Bigelow CCSU
Justine Gamache CCSU
Indira Petoskey ECSU
Chris Ambrosio ECSU
Robert Demezzo SCSU
Chris Piscitelli SCSU
Rebecca Woodward WCSU
John Murphy WCSU
In solidarity,
Gregg Crerar