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City Reaches Tentative Deals With Health Care Workers', Nurses' Unions

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio on Wednesday announced tentative agreements with two health care worker unions.

The city has reached agreements with the 1199 Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers East and the New York State Nurses Association, the mayor's office announced in a news release.

The agreements are consistent with the city's recently ratified contract with the United Federation of Teachers, and does not require new funding beyond prior budgetary projections, the release said.

The agreements also include "unprecedented" health care savings, and pay raises that will be made affordable by cost offsets from the city's labor reserve and a joint city-MLC Health Insurance Program Stabilization Fund, the release said.

As part of the contracts, the unions have agreed to set up an innovative child care and elder care fund for dependents, and restructure a new employee training fund, according to the release.

"Today marks another step toward restoring a productive, respectful relationship between the City and its workforce, while securing much-needed certainty that protects our long-term fiscal health," de Blasio said in the news release.

Representatives of the unions said they were pleased with the tentative deal.

"Mayor de Blasio's administration has ushered in a new era, in which the city's workforce is listened to and treated with respect," 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East President George Gresham said in the release. "This approach to negotiations sets the tone for our entire city, helps to address the destructive inequality gap, and signals that New York is for everyone, not just the wealthy few."

The proposed nine-year contract with 1199 SEIU would go back retroactively to Aug. 5, 2009, and continue until Aug. 4, 2018. The proposed contract with the nurses' union would go back to Jan. 21, 2010, and expire on June 5, 2019.

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