A union representing more than 9,000 state workers across the executive branch has ratified a new contract.
The Maine Service Employees Association Local 1989 began voting on the state’s last, best offer on Dec. 14, according to Tom Farkas, a spokesperson for MSEA-SEIU Local 1989.
The MSEA-SEIU announced the ratification on Saturday afternoon.
“We were encouraged that the contracts include a written agreement with the Mills administration to complete, negotiate and implement a new classification and compensation plan in 2024. As these contracts go into effect, we also will begin negotiations with the administration next month on how to implement a new compensation and classification system and address the state employee pay gap per the written agreement from the Mills administration to complete, negotiate AND implement the compensation and classification study in 2024. Those negotiations must start by Jan. 31, 2024,” Dean Staffieri, president of MSEA-SEIU Local 1989, said in a statement.
The new contract includes a 6 percent across-the-board increase in the paycheck nearest to Jan. 1, 2024; a 3 percent increase in the paycheck nearest to July 1, 2024; an additional 4 percent pay step; an $800 lump-sum payment in lieu of retroactive pay; minimum 7 percent pay increase on promotion; an additional two weeks of paid parental leave; 40 hours of bereavement leave; an increased child care stipend up to $2,000; and improvements to expenses, mileage reimbursement and more.
That comes after the MSEA, which represents more than 13,000 current and former state workers, including child protective workers, snow plow drivers, environmental engineers and ferry operators, and the state found themselves at odds over contract talks for months.
The contract between the state and MSEA expired in July.
In September, the Department of Administrative and Financial Services requested third-party mediation to work through the dispute, saying then that both sides remained “hundreds of millions of dollars apart.”
The MSEA maintained that the state’s budget surplus and record “rainy day fund” came at the expense of underpaid state workers, some of whom regularly experience forced overtime and some of whom have worked 21 days straight.
A 2020 study found state worker salaries were, on average, 11 percent to 15 percent “below market” for similar positions. But the Mills administration has said the state responded by raising pay by nearly 14 percent since Mills took office in 2019. That increase is 40 percent higher than the raises provided over the decade before Gov. Janet Mills took office, according to the governor’s office.
“We applaud MSEA members’ ratification of these new contracts, which demonstrates our commitment to providing competitive wages and benefits for State of Maine employees,” Kirsten Figueroa, commissioner of the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, said in a Tuesday statement. “We are now on track to increase wages by at least 23 percent since taking office while significantly improving benefits.”