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Workers urge faster contract funding and collective-bargaining rights for CPCS; unions push to streamline ratification payments
Summary
Labor leaders, CPCS staff and higher-education representatives told the committee that delays in funding ratified contracts cause serious financial harm and urged passage of H.2820 to speed contract payments and S.1873 to extend collective-bargaining rights to CPCS employees.
A broad coalition of union leaders, public-college faculty and staff, and CPCS attorneys and staff urged the Joint Committee on Public Service to act on multiple bills addressing contract funding delays, collective-bargaining rights and retiree COLA reforms.
Witnesses said protracted funding delays have tangible harms: local contracts that were ratified sometimes took months or years to be funded, leaving employees without agreed pay increases and forcing local institutions to front funds in some cases. Speakers from the Massachusetts Community College Council, Association of Professional Administrators (state universities), AFT Massachusetts and others recounted delayed ratification funding that created financial hardship for employees and urged H.2820, which would require the comptroller to release funding within 30 days after a contract reaches the governor’s desk, or otherwise create predictable processes for quick payment.
Separately, CPCS employees and SEIU representatives urged passage of S.1873 to declare CPCS the employer for the purposes of Chapter 150E, allowing CPCS staff (attorneys, social workers, investigators and administrative staff) the right to collectively bargain; several CPCS attorneys described attrition and morale problems they tie to the lack of collective-bargaining rights and said bargaining would improve retention and working conditions.
Speakers asked the committee to report the bills favorably and to avoid repeating historic delays that left some contract payments pending for more than two years in extreme cases. The committee heard many personal accounts but no committee vote on these bills was recorded in the transcript.
