Unlike regular contract negotiations where each of the state’s unions negotiates their individual contracts with the State, the healthcare plans offered to employees are negotiated jointly in a coalition. Because having different healthcare plans for each collective bargaining group would lose economies of scale and be difficult to manage, this approach has been beneficial to state employees by using the leverage of a massive pool of insured people to achieve plan offerings that meet people’s needs and are fiscally prudent. Healthcare negotiations run in tandem with normal contract negotiations, and that process began with the first in a series of meetings where the unions work to craft a proposal.
Once the unions’ healthcare proposal is complete, which is expected by the end of April, we will start negotiations with the State. That contract opener date is set for April 30th where proposals will be exchanged, and we have negotiation dates through the month of May. We hope to have healthcare negotiations done by June, when we hope to pivot to negotiation of the regular contract.
Any questions, feel free to reach out to mgec@mgec.org.