News from New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) and the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA)

For more information contact: Darcy Wells, (518) 785-1900 Ext. 277 or Richard Impagliazzo, (631) 462-0030

Media Advisory

State employees to rally for economic relief in high cost areas

HAUPPAUGE, NY (10/16/2007; 1105)(readMedia)-- On Wednesday, October 17, members of the New York State Public Employees Federation (PEF) will be joined by members from the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA) for a rally calling for economic relief for state employees who work in high-cost areas of the state.

Hundreds of PEF and CSEA members will gather outside the Hauppauge State Office Building, 250 Veterans Memorial Highway at noon to discuss why the current locality-pay system doesn't work and why the state should follow the federal model instead.

Members are prepared to talk about the difficulty of trying to live on a salary that lags behind the increases in the cost-of-living downstate.

New York State is among the largest employers on Long Island, yet pay increases for high cost-of-living areas have not kept pace with soaring housing costs, forcing the state’s engineers, accountants, auditors and others to abandon their communities in search of more favorable economic climates elsewhere. The state’s failure to address this issue contributes to the problem of younger workers in particular being forced out of their communities.

Leaders from PEF and CSEA have a message for negotiators with the Governor’s Office of Employee Relations (GOER): It's time for relief. It's time for pay equity among all state employees working in high-cost areas.

PEF is the state’s second-largest state-employee union, representing 58,000 professional, scientific and technical employees. For more information, please call Darcy Wells, PEF director of public relations, at 518-785-1900 ext. 277 or 518-859-1274.

CSEA is New York’s leading union; It’s Long Island Region alone represents more than 50,000 municipal and private-sector workers in towns, villages, cities, school districts and libraries throughout Nassau and Suffolk Counties. This includes some 11,000 state workers. For more information, please call Richard Impagliazzo, communications associate, CSEA Long Island region office at 631-462-0030.

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