Hartford - State union leaders said Monday they are considering ways to avoid mass layoffs as a result of last week's failed labor-deal vote, such as a potential new vote or a rewrite of their bylaws.

"While we respect those people who voted no, we also want to use our creativity to see if we can respect those 11 unions … that voted yes," said Sal Luciano, executive director of AFSCME Council 4, one of four unions that voted "no" to the savings and concessions agreement.

The leaders' daylong gathering in a union hall near the Capitol was the first meeting of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition since rank-and-file members voted down the deal they struck last month with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's administration. SEBAC represents the 15 state employee unions in negotiations.

The deal was to provide $1.6 billion in savings over two years to help balance the new state budget. Malloy has said as many as 7,500 layoffs could now result. However, an adviser to the governor said Monday that the potential layoff number, while still undecided, would be somewhat less than 7,500.

The 15 SEBAC leaders told reporters they agreed Monday to hold off on the final step of the voting process - casting their own ballots for or against concessions - and have opted instead to table the vote indefinitely.

Their next step is meeting with union members and discussing the alternatives to simply allowing the concessions agreement to fail, union officials said. Those options include:

• A potential revote for the unions that rejected the deal, if those members want one.

• Loosening the strict requirements in SEBAC's bylaws to transform the failed ratification vote into a successful one. Any such change would require a two-thirds weighted vote by the 10 SEBAC members, based on the size of each union.

The coalition's bylaws require affirmative votes from at least 14 of the 15 unions, in addition to 80 percent of voting members. The concessions agreement failed because only 11 of the unions voted for it, or 57 percent of all voting members.

The final two unions, the Connecticut State Police Union and IBPO/SEIU Local 731, rejected the agreement on Friday.

Altogether, 21,415 union members voted for the deal and 15,988 turned it down. The 37,403 total votes is significantly less than the roughly 45,000 state union members.

"The world is run by those who show up," Luciano said of the final tally.

The union leaders said they're disappointed in the vote outcome but will not force disgruntled unions to vote again on the concessions deal if they don't want to.

"There's not going to be a revote unless the members are for it," said Dan Livingston, SEBAC's chief negotiator. "We're going to go out and talk to members."

Some union officials indicated support for changing the coalition bylaws so the deal could pass without requiring a new vote.

"That is an unacceptable outcome, and we're going to explore every way we possibly can to reach a different outcome," Livingston said.

Patrice Peterson, president of the Connecticut State Employees Association, said the original intent of the bylaws' strict voting requirement was to prevent the raiding of pension funds. The rule also dates to a period when there were fewer state unions and union members.

But not everyone in the union hall appeared to be in favor of changing the rules to create a more favorable outcome. Luciano shook his head when a reporter asked about the likelihood of a bylaw rewrite.

"It's not probable," he said.

Still, Luciano said he feels that misinformation had a role in his members' votes to reject concessions. Some believed the erroneous reports that the agreement would switch their health care with Sustinet, he said.

"There seemed to be a campaign against this," Luciano said. "I thought we would be able to get to our members with a fresh perspective, and some of them had already heard all this negative stuff about the health care."

Moises Padilla, vice president of AFSCME Local 387, a corrections officers' unit that voted no, issued a media statement Monday saying the health care issue - what he called "a social experiment" - was the chief reason ratification failed.

State legislators are to return to Hartford for a special session Thursday to consider the governor's Plan B for balancing the budget without the union concessions.

Roy Occhiogrosso, Malloy's senior adviser, said the governor is paring back the number of potential layoffs because he wants to keep intact the state's technical high school system. He said the total number of layoffs is still undecided, but they will be issued early next week rather than this week.

Occhiogrosso also said Monday that he expects details of Malloy's alternative plan, including the new cuts to municipal aid, to be released within 24 hours.

j.reindl@theday.com