New York State is wrestling a $9.2B budget gap.\u00a0 In the face of that, public employees are set to receive a 4% raise as a part of their current contract.\u00a0 Governor Paterson has proposed withholding that raise as a part of trying to close the gap.\u00a0 The Civil Service Employees Association has filed a grievance.\u00a0 I’d like to file mine.<\/p>\n
I respect the value of unions.\u00a0 I even believe that in the private sector the unions have largely been neutered in recent decades to the detriment of employees.\u00a0 But in the public sector, unions are still demonstrating the greed and lack of empathy that caused them to fall from their heyday.\u00a0 The point of unions is to protect workers from overly greedy and abusive management practices.\u00a0 It is not to insulate workers from the economics of the industry in which they operate.<\/p>\n
I’ve been a private sector employee for almost 30 years.\u00a0 In that time I’ve absorbed all manner of hits to my personal income as a result of business downturns.\u00a0\u00a0 Everything from unpaid furlough weeks, to years without raises, to cancellations of bonus programs, to an across the board 7% pay cut.\u00a0 While I certainly didn’t enjoy any of those things, I do recognize the business reality that caused each of them.\u00a0 If my employer is having a bad year, then I share in the pain.<\/p>\n
I think that’s why I’m having such trouble feeling any empathy for the public workers who wouldn’t get their 4% raise.\u00a0 First, it is reasonable they share in the fiscal problems of their employer.\u00a0 Second, 4% is a big cost of living raise in the current economy.\u00a0 Last year my pay was flat.\u00a0 We got a small COLA this year, but not nearly 4%.\u00a0 I suspect you haven’t seen your pay grow much in the last 2 years either, unless you work for the state.<\/p>\n
So step up guys.\u00a0 Share the pain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
New York State is wrestling a $9.2B budget gap.\u00a0 In the face of that, public employees are set to receive<\/p>\n