California Insider

YOU DID IT!!! You made some 20,000 phone calls to your legislators. You
made countless visits to their offices at the Capitol and their districts.
All your work has paid off !

At the end of long and difficult negotiations with Gov. Schwarzenegger and
legislative leaders, we have achieved an excellent agreement.

1. You WILL receive your 5 percent salary restoration, effective October 1!

2. You will NOT have to pay one percent more for your pension!

3. We will NOT go back to mandatory Tier 2 pensions!

4. The state will fund increases in health insurance premiums.

5. The governor has pledged to sign SB 126, the rural health subsidy legislation which is critically important to our members who live in rural areas without access to HMOs.

6. The governor has agreed to a 5 percent salary increase for nurses in
Bargaining Unit 17 (over and above anything agreed to in contract
negotiations) and has promised a good faith effort to get state nurses to
parity with those in the private sector.

7. Teachers in Bargaining Unit 3 will receive a 2 percent salary increase
(over and above contract negotiations).

You told the governor and your legislators to "Say NO to a 7 Percent Cut!"
THEY HEARD YOU LOUD AND CLEAR! Congratulations on a great victory for the
members of CSEA!

Any successful negotiation requires compromise. Under this agreement,
newly hired state employees will pay 5 percent of their salaries into an
interest-bearing savings account administered by the state. The state will
not pay anything toward these contributions.

After two years, employees can deposit the money in the account with
CalPERS, in which case they will receive pension services credit for those
two years. At that point the state also will pay back its share as if the
workers had begun contributing to the plan from the beginning. Other
options are for the worker to keep the money in the savings account or
cash it out.

Most important, new state workers will remain in the Tier 1 system with
complete vesting after five years from the day they start state service.
This means they will NOT have to go into a mandatory, second-rate Tier 2
system that the governor originally proposed.

Thanks and congratulations to all of you who made this victory possible.