At first glance, the state’s labor unions face an uphill battle in halting the march to a new, less generous pension tier for future state workers as prescribed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

The Tier VI proposal is staunchly opposed by the state’s labor organizations, but Cuomo’s insertion of the plan into his budget proposal practically guarantees its passage. It helps that the governor has a sky-high approval rating and that most voters seem to support Tier VI, which includes an optional defined-contribution component.

But Public Employees Federation President Ken Brynien sees it differently.

“Even popular people can be wrong sometimes and in this case, the governor is wrong,” Brynien told me Sunday night.

But the fact that Cuomo’s popularity helps him the budget and pension battle was highlighted after the Civil Service Employees Association released a television ad in opposition that didn’t mention or show the governor with the 70 percent approval rating.

Of course, Cuomo’s plan has a flip side. Putting the proposal into the budget does risk the possibility of a government shutdown should state lawmakers balk at the idea. Brynien went further with Jimmy Vielkind, telling him it should a “line in the sand” for pro-union legislators.

The pension plan has roughly zero effect on this year’s $132.5 billion budget, but does save $83 billion over the course of 30 years. Cuomo has said the state pension fund is in dire need of transformation given the amount of money it costs local and state governments.

Given the timetable for this year’s budget — lawmakers want to get it done by March 22 — gives unions even less time to muster resistance. The budget is due April 1, the start of the 2012-13 fiscal year. Labor plans to make its stand in March through coordination with affiliated unions and a mix of direct lobbying, ads and rallies.

“We’ve already started some ads as you know,” Brynien said. “We’re working with some other unions in the AFL-CIO to produce them. Probably throughout the month of March there’ll be direct lobbying of legislators both in Albany and in their districts. There’ll be more ads, there might be a rally or two, there will be a lot of letter writing. Everybody pretty much assumes that the budget will be done by the end of March, so March is the month that we’re going to put on all our efforts to get this changed.”

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