By BILL SANDERSON
Last updated: 7:28 am
July 3, 2008
Posted: 3:39 am
July 3, 2008
Unionized Con Ed workers will keep their preferred defined-benefit pension plan under a four-year contract reached with the company in marathon talks that ended early yesterday.
Workers represented by Local 1-2 of the Utility Workers of America will also get "significant" pay raises, said local president Harry Farrell. But he and other union officials wouldn't be specific, and a Con Ed spokesman declined to give details. It's unclear how the contract will affect electricity rates, though the state Public Service Commission considers Con Ed's labor costs when it sets rates. In a statement, Con Ed said only that the settlement "holds down costs for our customers."
In May, Con Ed asked the state for three straight years of 4.9 percent residential-rate increases starting in April 2009. The ultimate size of those increases could vary according to the actual price of generated electricity.
Con Ed's 11th-hour decision to retract its proposal to shift workers to a 401(k)-style retirement plan "was a big thing for us," Farrell said.
