PROVIDENCE — With voting already under way on a controversial contract proposal for state workers, it remains unclear what will happen if a majority rejects it.

And that unanswered question has become a huge part of the increasingly heated debate because the Carcieri administration has done something that the state has not done in recent memory: send contract termination letters to each union.

A typical letter says: “Please be advised, in accordance with the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement between the state of Rhode Island and [fill in the blank], that the state desires to terminate the agreement as of June 30, 2008.”

Other than acknowledging that the letters were sent, Department of Administration Director Jerome Williams has refused to answer any questions about what they signify. And union leaders are divided among themselves as to what the letters might mean to workers facing what is already, for many of them, a tough vote on a contract that requires most of them to pay more for their health insurance and take a “one-day pay reduction” in a year without a raise.

The uncertainty has led to fear and loathing in organized labor ranks across state government.

While J. Michael Downey, president of the largest state employees union — Council 94, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, AFL-CIO — accuses his union brethren of using the letters to try to “scare” the workers into approving the bad contracts they negotiated, other labor leaders say the workers have reason for concern.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty as to what happens if the contracts are rejected,” says Patrick Crowley, deputy director of the National Education Association. “What we are advising our members is: it puts us in a bit of jeopardy because we don’t exactly know what the governor’s office will do.”In a brief interview yesterday after an unrelated news conference, Governor Carcieri dispelled the notion that he has any immediate plans to unilaterally change employee benefits or lay off staff if the workers refuse to ratify the contract proposal, on which he has hinged as much as $60 million in projected savings.

“No, no. I’m the optimist. I think they’re going to,” Carcieri said. “And if they don’t then we’ll sit down and figure out what we’ll have to do.” So the letters are not an implied threat of layoffs and benefit changes? “No. That’s just part of the process. There’s a process you have to go through. There’s notifications. If they don’t [ratify], there’s notification procedures we have to go through.”

But his answers are unlikely to quell all of the workers’ concerns. One state worker, who asked for anonymity, emerged from one of the union briefing sessions this week with this report: “A person from [Local] 580 is telling many people that Council 94 members do not have a contract as of 7/1/08 and that the governor is ready, willing and able to replace us all.”

Asked about this persistent rumor, Downey, who opposed putting the contract proposal to a vote, said: “I haven’t heard the Carcieri administration running around with that thought and I hope they are not … I think it’s our own union people saying this ugly stuff: ‘You aren’t going to have a contract. You are going to pay 50 percent of the health-care premiums.’ ”

Downey said he doesn’t believe it.

But Council 94 executive-director Dennis Grilli, one of the union representatives who negotiated the proposal, said: “I have never been through this before so there are a lot of unknowns and a lot of uncharted territory [with] which we are not familiar.”

The NEA’s Crowley said state law provides some guideposts if the contract goes down. “From our perspective, we will need to begin engaging in negotiations, but this administration has a definite private-sector bent to it, [so] I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried some private-sector tactics … [such as] starting to eliminate contracts or picking out places where they don’t need to follow it.”

Aside from Carcieri’s brief comments yesterday, his administration has refused comment on its intentions, refusing to even say if the state has ever sent out contract-termination letters before.

The governor’s press secretary Amy Kempe suggested that answering factual questions about state labor relations history would be tantamount to commenting on “negotiations.”

The dispute centers on a seemingly contradictory provision in many state contracts that says, in effect: an expired contract will “remain in full force” during negotiations unless “either party desires to terminate” it. In most years, this is what happens: after so many days of negotiation, a dispute can be put to a mediator and if that proves unproductive, to an arbitrator. The process can go on for years.

This time, the unions and the administration have not even begun formal negotiations.

Union leaders agreed to an alternative approach that would spare the administration from having to negotiate with each union individually. They put several key players in organized labor — including Grilli, AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer George Nee, and the NEA’s executive director Robert Walsh — at a table with Carcieri’s negotiators.

What emerged was the proposal headed for a final vote by Council 94 on July 24.

Two unions have already said yes: affiliates of the Laborers’ International Union of North America and Local 580 of the Rhode Island Alliance of Social Service Employees. Late last week, an affiliate of the NEA that represents the Association of Clerical-Technical Employees at the University of Rhode Island said no.

Among the highlights of the proposal: raises of zero, 2.5 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent during each of the next four years; a one-day pay reduction in the current year that employees can recoup as a paid leave day; and escalating increases in the percentage of premium the employees will be required to pay for their health insurance.

In the first year, the employees will be required to pay between 8 percent and 25 percent — depending on how much they make — of the $17,827 cost of a family, health, dental and vision plan. In the final contract year, they will pay between 15 percent and 25 percent.

The reaction in some quarters has been angry. One flier making the rounds says: “Attention Council 94 Members: OUTRAGEOUS MEDICAL CO-PAYS! … NO RAISES IN 2008! OUTRAGEOUS LEADERSHIP!” “We should all call the Council and demand that they go back and negotiate for us, not the state.”

When asked what happens if workers reject the agreement, union leaders point to decisions in a fall 1992 case involving Warwick teachers.

In its 18-page decision, the state Labor Relations Board concluded “that unilateral departure from the terms of an expired contract, prior to exhaustion of all available statutory dispute resolution procedures violates the obligation under [28-7-13] to bargain collectively.”

But if this sounds decisive, the NEA’s Crowley says it is not.

“We really don’t know exactly what tack the governor will take,” he said.

And he said there is “plenty of anger” aimed not only at the governor, but “more and more” at the General Assembly from state workers asking: “how come we’re having to pay this much for health insurance and the Assembly can’t make the same sacrifice themselves?”

—With reports by staff writer Steve Peoples

kgregg@projo.com