A legislative subcommittee that has been critical of the provisions of state contracts voted Thursday to reject new agreements with two of the state's largest unions, representing 27,700 state employees.
The Legislative Subcommittee on Employee Relations, with a Republican majority, voted 6-4 to reject contracts negotiated by the Dayton Administration and the two unions -- the American Federal of State, County and Municipal employees (AFSCME) and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees (MAPE.)
All the votes against the contract were supplied by Republican members, and all the votes for the contract were supplied by DFLers.
The vote means AFSCME and MAPE members continue to work under terms of the old contracts. The new agreement will come to the Legislature in 2013, so the November legislative election could determine whether this agreement can ultimately win approval.
Opponents of the agreement said state workers are still earning more than private workers, and receiving much better benefits, and they want the gap narrowed. Union leaders and DFL members said the contract was modest, calling for the first across-the-board hike for these workers in several years.
The Subcommittee called on DFL Gov. Mark Dayton to renegotiate the contracts, but union leaders said they would not do so.
Following the vote, Dayton issued a statement saying Republican subcommittee members "played more pre-election politics... As a result of their actions, the increased payments by state employees for their health care, which had been negotiated in those new contracts, will be lost."
