The largest state employee union that for years feuded with former Gov. Chris Christie is on the verge of forging a contract with Gov. Phil Murphy that includes salary increases and back pay, the union announced Monday.
The New Jersey section of the Communications Workers of America, whose 32,000 members have been working without a contract for three years, has a "tentative agreement" with the new administration reaching back to July 2015 and expiring in June 2019.
The new contract will provide all covered workers with two 2-percent pay increases and, importantly, compensate them for the longevity pay bumps Christie's administration had frozen since 2015, according to the announcement on the group's website.
CWA leaders said they will provide members with additional details on the contract later this week and set a date for members the ratify the deal.
The union made no concessions in the tentative agreement, the negotiating team said in its message to workers.
"We achieved our goals," they said. "The contract improves on the pattern set by other settlements and sets a foundation for our next contract. We bargained to receive all of our increments retroactively and raises for workers at max."
Hetty Rosenstein, state director of the Communications Workers of America, and a spokesman for Murphy, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The previous contract expired in June 2015. And union leaders said at the time they were holding off on entering formal negotiations with the state pending a state Supreme Court ruling on funding for government worker pensions they said would set the tone for those talks.
After the contracts expired, Christie, a Republican, suspended these employees' pay bumps, called step increases, they typically receive when they reach certain longevity milestones, and the CWA and other state labor groups filed suit.
In the past when previous contracts expired without a new one in place, workers continued to receive their step increases. Christie's administration broke from this longstanding tradition, setting off a years-long fight that concludes with this contract.
A similar dispute between local public safety unions and Atlantic County and Bridgewater Township went in the workers' favor, with the state Supreme Court largely upholding the practice.
Still, the Christie administration refused to pay employees' step increases, and asked the state agency in charge of public labor relations to block the CWA's request to go to arbitration to argue that the state should unfreeze their pay.
Then, Murphy's decidedly more labor-friendly administration took office and negotiations appeared to begin in earnest.
Samantha Marcus may be reached at smarcus@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @samanthamarcus. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.