CRANSTON — First the firefighters, now the laborers.

The City Council ratified Cranston’s second package of union concessions Monday, approving changes to a laborers contract that are expected to save taxpayers about $300,000 over the next two years.

The bulk of the savings — about $185,000 — will come from delayed pay raises, as a 2.9-percent increase that laborers were to receive on July 1 is delayed until July 1, 2010, and a 3- percent raise due next July is delayed until 2011.

Also saving money will be contract changes that eliminate employee clothing allowances and payments for unused vacation time, charge employees higher copays for doctor visits and reduce the city’s payments to a union pension fund and a union legal fund.

The union, in return, was able to save four jobs that had been threatened with layoffs, said Arthur Jordan, business manager for Local 1322 of the Laborers International Union of North America.

“We’re just happy to have a contract and move forward,” Jordan said after the unanimous council vote. “With the vast majority of the guys living in the city, they understand the economic climate.”

Like firefighters before them, the laborers agreed to open an existing contract and negotiate with the city as it faces cuts in state aid and heads into a new fiscal year with a budget that counts on $2.2 million in union concessions.

The recent deal with firefighters is expected to save some $3.3 million over 3½ years, and the city is also negotiating with the Teamsters Union.

Unlike the laborers and firefighters, the talks with Teamsters are taking place as the two sides attempt to negotiate a new contract, the last one having expired in 2008.

The other city union — the police — agreed to concessions that would have saved $1.39 million over three years, but the council rejected the deal, saying the new contract proposed by Mayor Allan W. Fung gave up management rights and derived most of its savings from vacant positions.

Fung later noted that the concessions he negotiated with firefighters also derived most of the savings from vacant positions, but council members said the police deal was different because the police were negotiating an entirely new contract and should have been willing to give up more.

Robin Muksian-Schutt, Fung’s director of administration, said the mayor was “extremely pleased” that the council was supportive of the concessions from laborers, who typically make about $35,000 a year.

Council Vice President Terence Livingston, meanwhile, said, “everybody deserves a little credit” on the laborers’ concessions — the laborers for being willing to help, the mayor for negotiating the deal and the council for encouraging the mayor by adopting a budget that needs concessions to stay balanced.

redgar@projo.com