The state has reached tentative agreement on a new, three-year contract with the largest union representing Alaska Marine Highway System workers.
The proposal includes a 1-percent pay raise starting July 1, 2015, and 2 percent the following year.
It also calls for employees to pay $100 annually to use the ferry, a benefit the union’s regional director says extends to immediate family. Previously, workers and retirees and their families received free passage on ferries on a stand-by basis.
Terms must be approved by the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific and the state Legislature.
The agreement keeps in place the long-standing pay differential between in-state and out-of-state employees that lawmakers debated earlier this year.
A Department of Administration spokesman says talks are continuing with the other two marine unions.
