ADVERTISEMENT

N.J. State Workers Safe ‘No Matter What Happens With Economy’

Murphy Furlough Plan Cuts Worker Hours Just as State Reopening

New Jersey’s biggest public-workers union is voting on a furloughs agreement with Governor Phil Murphy’s administration that guarantees no layoffs through December 2021 “no matter what happens with the economy,” members are being told.

The Communications Workers of America, in documents posted on its website for 35,000 members, said the deal was better than the concessions it agreed to in the wake of the financial downturn. During that time, the state’s unemployment rate climbed to a high of 9.8%. Amid the coronavirus-induced shutdown that began in March, joblessness surged to 16.3%.

“The crisis we face now is much, much worse and promises to have more long-term effects,” the summary stated. “However, we have negotiated an agreement here that will protect our jobs. And we have done so while not having members sacrifice as much as we did in 2009.”

The agreement is in contrast to what is happening in other parts of the U.S. In the past two months, states and cities have cut 1.5 million jobs, U.S. data show, roughly twice as many as those after the last economic contraction.

Murphy, a first-term Democrat, was elected in 2017 on the union’s endorsement. Bipartisan furlough legislation, which the state Assembly and Senate sent to Murphy in May, went unsigned. Lawmakers said the bill had potential to save $150 million to $450 million, depending on whether local governments participated.

Days Off

The agreement between Murphy and the CWA would force thousands of state employees -- whom Murphy has called key to the coronavirus response -- to take time off as the state is monitoring for an uptick in cases. The transmission rate, which measures the number of people infected by each known virus carrier, has climbed in 16 of 21 counties, and the state has joined New York and Connecticut in an advisory for visitors from newly hard-hit states to self-isolate.

The union said federal unemployment benefits available will cushion the impact of the furloughs from June 29 to July 31, when Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security payouts end.

“These days are eligible for unemployment, and for the majority of our members, they can take these days without any loss of pay,” the union advises. “In some cases, members will take home more money than they do under their regular pay.”

The union referred to furloughs, wage deferrals and other concessions it made in the wake of the Great Recession. New Jersey took years longer than its neighbors to recover the jobs it shed during that period.

No Layoffs

Hetty Rosenstein, the Communications Workers area director, said by telephone that members’ votes are due on Saturday. She declined to comment further.

For the union, a pair of 2% across-the-board wage increases will be deferred, and workers who have reached the top of their pay grades will still collect bonuses of $750 to $1,000. Stepped pay raises of about 4% will continue to kick in on employees’ hiring anniversaries.

“We have a No Layoff Agreement that protects all of our members from any layoffs between now and December 31, 2021 no matter what happens with the economy,” the union wrote. “Our members are safe.”

At a Trenton news conference on Thursday, Murphy and his chief counsel, Matt Platkin, declined to comment on the agreement’s specifics, citing the members’ pending vote outcome.

“The bill that was passed by the legislature and put on the governor’s desk wouldn’t have changed the fact that we had to work out the agreement with the labor unions, which we were working on before that bill was passed,” Platkin said.

The agreement specifies 10 unpaid days to be taken over a month and anticipates that workers will apply for unemployment benefits for the missed hours. Those collecting jobless benefits are entitled to $600 weekly in federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation so long as they receive state payments as well, according to U.S. Labor Department guidance.

The proposal doesn’t specify the payroll savings to the state, which is facing an estimated $10.1 billion revenue shortfall through June 2021. Murphy, when he announced the agreement on Tuesday, said he wouldn’t give a cost estimate, or comment on the plan’s details, until it’s ratified by the workers.

Fifteen Republican state senators, in a letter to Murphy, said the furloughs plan was “too little, too late,” and called for wage freezes. Many employees, they wrote, were at home, unable to perform their job duties, yet collecting full salaries.

“Had you signed the bill into law and implemented furloughs immediately, the state could have taken greater advantage of generous federal unemployment benefits that would have paid more to most furloughed employees than they were making during that time by remaining on the state payroll while at home and not working,” the letter stated. It was signed by Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. and 14 of his colleagues.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.