Issue 5-Collective Bargaining

Vietvet,

Acclaro,

The fire fighter starting salary is higher than a typical person with a Bachelor or Masters degree.  I know because I have a Masters and didn't make that much after paying for 6 years of college.

So stewieboy.....if true that the step increases are in addition to the regular negotiated raises, in essence, they are getting two raises per year. Wonder what the percentage of each is? The last 5 to 10 years, in the private sector, the raises have been anywhere from 0% to as much as 3% on average from my experiences. If they are doing better than this, it is another advantage that the union folks have been enjoying that the private sector has not. What are your thoughts on this subject ashkicker? In addition to the 9% union folks pay toward their benefits (to around 15-22% for private sector) and this "step increase" in addition to the regular raise per year, I'd say you folks are doing just a tad bit better than we non-union private sector people. I'm sure you can understand the reluctance to support your point of view from our vantagepoint.(assuming all this is accurate of course)

TonyB, you must have a son or daughter working in the department? FACT- 30% of the average public workr makes 30% more than private sector. FACT: the average public secctor makes >50% in benefits such as insurance, etc., than public. THAT's WHY they do their work and enter the field. Nice gig if you can get it.

"Step increases are given on a employee's anniversary date. Contractural raises are given however the CBA is structured". So we can assume that you normally receive two increases per year? One increase per year in the private sector, if you're lucky nowadays. Has been for the 40+ years I have been working.

"In the private sector, is there a top pay?" Yes. In my experiences on a floor factory job and as a research tech., each level has a pay range. That pay range may overlap the next highest pay range. A highly rated "T-1" may be making more than a low rated "T-2" for example. If you do not get a promotion and are highly rated in your current level, you may receive a small increase in pay as you reach the "topped out level" in your pay grade. On the factory floor, the jobs have a range of pay, depending on the skill level required and the responsibility of that job. A machine operator is going to make more than a person packing parts on a prod. line. Takes more skill to run a machine than to put pieces in a box and seal it. If there is no opening on the floor for a higher paying position to apply for, you stay where you're at and receive small increases if you are near the top of your pay range. You must wait until a position opens up to move higher. Sometimes, that never happens if there is little turnover in the department.

"Do most employees reach that top pay?"- At Crane Plastics, a line operator (lowest operator position on the floor) spends some time in the position running simple jobs until his lead man thinks he is ready to test for "A" operator. He tests and if he passes, moves to starting range A operator and begins to run harder profile jobs. This happens for Senior Operators also. Each position has several steps to warrant a merit raise. If you produce, have few defects and little scrap on a continual basis, it helps in the promotion process. You "top out" at the highest level of Senior Operator after 15+ years if you are proficient and pass all tests in a minimal amount of time. Lead man is the next level- IF a lead man position is available. They just don't create a lead man position just because a Senior Operator is topped out. If not available,then you stay a topped out Senior Operator with small increases up to a certain point- then nothing more. (or you transfer out of the department if something opens up or you leave the company for a better paying job and opportunity somewhere else.

"My point is at some time the younger employee is going to get larger or more frequent raises to reach the same pay as the older employee"- Nope. Everyone gets a raise once a year at performance appraisal time (or if they pass the tests to the next level, but not two raises in a year) Based on merit/accomplishments/value to the company. Younger employee doesn't get more frequent raises over the older employee. Older employee may be the "A" operator and is slower and not as skilled at learning as the younger employee. The younger employee will go right past him. Everyone learns and progresses at a different rate. The younger employee may have demonstrated "A" operator skills long before the older one did and will make Senior Operator faster if he can demonstrate the skills needed better.

"My point is at some time the younger employee is going to get larger or more frequent raises to reach the same pay as the older employee".- not if he can't demonstrate the skill levels to move up the ladder, he won't. Age has nothing to do with it. Demonstrating skills to achieve the next level does. How you perform matters- age does not when it comes to raises. Everyone gets the same raise/same frequency within the skill level attained whether you're 20 or 60.


"I currently pay 10% into my pension and it has been discussed to raise that to 12.5%"- yes...we can select 0-5-10 or 15% out of our paycheck to go to retirement.


"Family plan medical is around $100/month, I think"- that's cheap- my paycheck sees a hit of $300 per month for medical and $160 per month for dental coverage.(that's in addition to what the company pays) The medical is excellent with Anthem and I need it for my wife's many major medical issues. Otherwise, we would be bankrupt. The dental coverage sucks with a max. coverage cost of only $1000 per year. Hell, a root canal eats up $800 of that. Nothing left for fillings, cleanings, etc. Anything over a $1000, I pay for out of pocket, after forking out $160 a month to boot. Crappy coverage.

"I have agreed to pay up to $112.58/month into the insurance plan."- company supplies my base salary as insurance. I purchased supplemental coverage at 4 times my base salary and have the premium taken out of the paycheck every two weeks.

"Talk to me again when you go to work and a mother puts her dead baby in your arms and expects you to do miracles"- yes, you have the human element in your job. My job is the cold, hard fact of creating new ideas through research that will enhance the possibility of the company making more money. No human emotions involved other than to daily tiffs with the scientists and engineers of course.


"I have listened to people complain that I donate money to get candidates elected. Those elected officials then give me whatever I what when contract talks come around. What about the companies that donate huge sums of money to get the candidates elected so they will pass management friendly laws passed to line their pockets"- ok, what's your point? People in the private sector AND public sectors make political donations all the time to try and get the person who they may benefit from elected. Those elected officials who "give me whatever I want when contract talks come around" would be our city council who is suppose to be representing the taxpayer who is providing the funding to "give you whatever you want". I would hope (but know otherwise) that they would not "give away the store" at negotiation time. If they are,they are screwing the general public who is supplying the money they are giving away and are catering (caving in) to the union demands while ignoring the majority of the tsxpayers. Salary and bennie costs are 75% of the city's budget. Gotta lower that cost to get the budget in line with the poor revenues in this city. The city just ain't bringin' in as much as they are spending.

The bailout money?....I think most of us know that was wrong to do. It was done by Obama and the Dems to support the unions for the purpose of gaining more votes at election time. I noticed that we taxpayers weren't asked if we wanted the feds to use our money for these bailouts. They probably wouldn't have liked the response. Wanna know the kicker....I voted for Obama and am a registered Dem. Don't agree with alot of his thinking nor where we're headed. Don't care for Repub Boehner nor Mitch McConnell either. More and Independent now than either major party supporter.

Now, I am not trying to start an argument. I am just presenting a few facts, and then offering a different point of view. (The compensation and political donation figures are from the Center for Public Integrity website. You can find them here: http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/2964/ )

• The Nation Education Association (NEA), representing most of the nation’s teachers, has 31 headquarters officers and employees who earn over $200,000. The president, Dennis Van Roekel, received $397,721 in salary and benefits. Of the $3.7 million NEA spent on political activities in the last election cycle, 98 percent went to Democratic candidates.
• The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) is the smaller of the two teacher unions and also represents school support staff, higher education faculty and staff, health care professionals and state and municipal employees. At AFT’s headquarters in Washington, nine officers and employees earn more than $200,000 a year. Randi Weingarten, who was elected president in 2008, received $428,284 in salary and benefits. Of the $2.4 million donated to political candidates in the past two years, the union gave all but $10,000 to Democrats.
• The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), whose membership has increased in recent years, has been organizing hospital, home care and nursing home workers, along with local and state government employees, janitors and security officers. The union has nine headquarters officers and employees who earn over $200,000. The former president, Andy Stern, was paid $306,388 in salary and benefits from the union in 2009. In his final year, Stern got a 5 percent pay boost. Over the past two years, SEIU gave almost $2 million to Democratic candidates and $8,500 to Republicans.
• The American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME), one of the fastest growing unions in the United States, was founded in Wisconsin almost 80 years ago. At union headquarters in Washington, 10 officers and employees receive more than $200,000 a year. Gerald McEntee, who was first elected union president in 1981, was paid $479,328 in salary and benefits in 2009. Over the past two years, AFSCME has donated $2.3 million to Democratic candidates and $13,000 to Republicans.

Now, if you do the math, all of the above easily adds up to over $25 million, and these aren’t all of the public employee unions by a long shot. Next consider that some of the people may not want to belong to a union, but they have no choice--they are forced to join (or, in some states, at least to pay the dues). And yes, I am familiar with the argument that they enjoy the benefits of belonging to the union. But look how many of these union big shots earn as much, or more, than the evil, rich bankers and corporate officers!!! Talk about taxing the rich??? You folks are PAYING the rich, and doing so with money that first came from the TAXPAYERS!!!

And another thing: out of the millions of your union brothers and sisters who are members of these unions, don’t you think that there is a substantial number who are NOT of the Democratic Party persuasion??? They may be Libertarian, Green Party, Constitution Party, Communist Party, Independents, or even <gasp> Republicans, and yet neither they, nor YOU have any control over where (or how much of) these MILLIONS of dollars in political donations go. Yet the money goes to nearly ALL Democrats!!! And again, these political contribution first had to be taken from the TAXPAYERS to be passed through you on the way to the wealthy union officials!!!

I’m not saying whether this is right or wrong, I am just saying that this is DIFFERENT than the private sector. If I don’t like Walmart’s social agenda, I can shop at Target. If I don’t like General Motors’ political leanings, I can buy a Ford, etc. But neither you nor I nor any other citizen has a choice whether or not to pay taxes, so somehow my tax money ends up in Andy Stern's pocket and helping to elect Barack Obama (neither of whom are even my Facebook "friends", let alone listed as dependents on my IRS-1040)!!!

TonyB- all I know is that on the evening news, every night for a period of time, the discussion always focused on the bailouts for GM, the banks, AIG and other companies that were run into the ground. Don't agree using taxpayer money, without taxpayer permission, to bail already failed enterprises out of trouble. Some of these shops were union and with the bailout, continued to excessive wages, bennies and retirement programs. We're back to were we were with some of these companies before the trouble began. What good did it do to help the very same people who failed miserably before? And, why should some companies be kept afloat with taxpayer money help while others go under and the very same people who's taxes went to save some, ended up losing their jobs anyway? Look, I'm not anti- Dem/Obama. I'm not pro-Republican/Boehner and their agenda. I'm anti- all Washington, Columbus, Middletown government people. All levels have really overspent in relation to revenues in and have played their special interest game so long, it has caught up with them. All levels have really screwed this country up. The PEOPLE are the only ones left with level heads. The problem has always been who the people select to run the show for them. They are special agenda idiots who sell the people out each and everyday. There are no politicians who think like the people do. JMO

ashkicker-

"Where do you get you information on the salaries of water treatment employees?"- from the journal story today.

"I believe a lot of this argument is based on jealousy. I believe this legislation is a payback against the Unions."- Not jealousy...just measuring what I believe a water treatment plant person does from a high tech standpoint and assessing what they make based on the info. in the article, that's all. Legislation is a payback against the unions.....perhaps. Could also be a legitimate attempt to help hold the city budget in line and curtail costs as much as possible. Being a union person, you will always view any change in the reduction of your current situation as an attack. I, as a non-union worker, may view that same situation as the city attempting to hold down costs to help the strained budget or an attempt to bring the perceived bloated union perks in line with the rest of the working world.


"Years ago the City contracted through Anthem for our healthcare. A committee researched other providers and found United Health Care would provide similar benfits at a cheaper rate. Subsequently, the City changed to UHC and saved money. All the Unions had a seat on that committee. Maybe changing providers would save you money". No ashkicker, you don't understand. My employer provides the healthcare choices for me through the Human Resources Department. THEY shop around and get the healthcare package for all the employees. We select the plan from the healthcare program they have selected for us, that best accomodates our situation. We don't have the option of selecting our own healthcare provider. We employees don't have a "seat on any committee" to help make a selection.



"For two employees hired years apart that do the same job to make the same money because they perform to the same level, the younger employee HAS to get either bigger or more frequent raises."- No...again... I told you before, AGE DOESN'T HAVE A DAM THING TO DO WITH IT. If you have a young person who is a level 1 machine operator and an older person, hired years before, who is also a level 1 machine operator, BOTH (young and old) will be making a wage that is somewhere in the pay range of what a level 1 machine operator makes. The "bigger and more frequent raises" you mention has nothing to do with AGE. It has everything to do with one performing better than the other. The older person may receive the larger raise if they are PERFORMING better. OR- OR, the younger person who hired in at a later date, started higher on the wage scale as time went by. Pay is constantly being adjusted to reflect what the current market is yielding for a comparable job in the area. Employers are always checking the prevailing wages in the area to make sure they are offering a competitive wage. The young person may start out at what the older worker has built their wages up to over the years. Adjustment of the standard of living as it increases as time goes by.

Unfortunately none of the posturing here matters at all.
This is beyond local or state--it is universal.
NO MONEY is a very finite answer.
Public sector workers will deal with the same health care/retirement meltdown as experienced by the private sector.

Ash,vet,acclaro,Tony,spider are not to blame, yet we are ALL to blame for kicking the can down the road instead of facing the gorilla head-on. We ALL knew that this was coming, and it would be foolish to think that this can be easily fixed.

denial is more than a river in Africa.
Is the Republican response somewhat draconian(a term first used right here by myself when these statehouse rumblings began)? IMO yes. Is this what the general public wants? A very dangerous even split.

Not that it matters, since now we can't afford anything less than this realistically.
Ash buddy-- u tell me how we can fix this mess now.

Vet,

Come on Ash
Your answers are a finger in the crack of a dike bursting at the seams.
We have waited too long to try minor adjustments.
There is no money for future obligations, and nowhere to get mo money.
The end is not down the road--it is here now.
I don't expect you to like my thinking--I don't like it much either, however the truth is very painful to everyone.
Your system has collapsed.
Whomever is in charge of managing and maintaining it sold you down the river--just as happened with the private sector 401k/Ira/health care/stock market meltdown. much of your future went away at the same time. they just didn't want to tell you.
Welcome to the club!

We are all in this together