Gov. Deval Patrick's budget chief said Friday.

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November 21, 2009

Anonymous The Gloucester Daily Times Sat Nov 21, 2009, 05:25 AM EST

BOSTON — The Patrick administration has drawn concessions, including furloughs and a delay in a previously negotiated wage increase, from leaders of four unions representing 30,000 state employees.

The union heads of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), and Service Employees International Union locals 509 and 888 will bring the deals to members in the next several weeks, said Administration and Finance Secretary Jay Gonzalez.

At a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce forum, Gonzalez said the concessions amount to "tens of millions" of savings and could prevent hundreds of layoffs. The agreement includes a one-year delay in a 1 percent negotiated wage increase, totaling some $35 million.

The administration of Gov. Deval Patrick is still negotiating with a number of other unions, including the Massachusetts Organization of State Engineers and Scientists, groups representing corrections officers, nurses, and State Police officers.

In a related development, Gonzalez announced that four unions representing 75 percent of the state's 40,000-person executive branch union work force have agreed to forgo raises and take furloughs to join management employees in staving off potential layoffs.

Negotiators for AFSCME, NAGE, SEIU Local 509 and SEIU Local 888 struck the deals this week and now are ready to start presenting them to rank and file for approval.

Gonzalez said the deals would create "tens of millions in savings" and represented the first time a governor had gotten a furlough agreement and delay in contracted wage increase since state employee collective bargaining started in 1974.

Patrick said in October that Massachusetts would have to cut about 2,000 jobs to close an estimated $600 million budget deficit. He said 1,000 of those cuts would happen regardless, due to program cuts. But he called on unions to match management concessions to avoid up to 1,000 layoffs he feared would drastically harm the state's delivery of services.

The governor ordered managers to take up to nine furlough days, depending on their salary. Gonzalez said the unions had matched the savings either through furloughs, compensation givebacks or a combination of both.

After his speech, the secretary told reporters that if the agreements are ratified, it would save "hundreds" of jobs.