Thousands of public employees across New York State rushed to sign up for pensions over the last several weeks, seeking to lock in generous retirement benefits before cuts approved by the State Legislature took effect on Sunday.

At the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, for example, more than 12,000 workers applied last week to enroll in the pension system — more than 40 times the typical weekly number of applicants. And the New York City Board of Education Retirement System received nearly 9,000 applications over the last two weeks, after enrolling only 122 new members in all of February.

“It’s just common-sense economics here,” said Stephen Madarasz, a spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association, the state’s largest union of public workers. “You’re looking at an enormous difference in benefits.”

Lawmakers approved the changes last month, requiring most employees who joined the pension system beginning on April 1 to contribute more to their pensions while reducing how much money they are promised when they retire.

Public-employee unions, which had unsuccessfully fought to dissuade the Legislature from reducing pension benefits, campaigned using social media and traditional forms of outreach to persuade workers to sign up before the benefits dropped. The New York State United Teachers asked local union leaders to alert their members.

The Public Employees Federation sent an e-mail alert to thousands of workers and posted on its Facebook page. And District Council 37, the city’s largest municipal employees’ union, used lunchtime meetings with its members, as well as Facebook, Twitter, public access television and a variety of media appearances to reach its members….

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