Читать книгу Prison Puzzle Pieces 3 - Dave Basham - Страница 64

The state says it bargains in good faith. Offering a quarter of one percent with decreased benefits doesn’t qualify as bargaining in good faith in my book. Would you be thrilled with an offer like this? Our governor at the time talked about offering us 3%. He said that is what was budgeted. If that is what was budgeted, why were we offered only a quarter of a percent? The 3% was offered after a vote was taken to reject their previous ridiculous offer. Had this been the first offer, I know of no one who would have rejected it. No one would have been happy with it, but there would not have been a strike. With our small raise and decreased benefits, we were making less after this contract than we were before, and that’s not even counting the 4.2% inflation rate for the previous year. This was in a year where our politicians chose to give a tax rebate to make like they were doing a good job and cared about us. This was at the same time that they were disrespecting and treating unfairly 28,000 of their employees.

The governor was saying the state couldn’t afford anything due to the economy. This didn’t hold water though as we were constantly hearing of other state departments getting raises that at least kept up with inflation. We were also hearing of the bosses getting huge raises.

Government Raises:	2001	Next 4 Years
Governor	7.5%	16.0%
Lt. Governor	7.5%	34.7%
Attorney General	17.0%	37.6%
Auditor	34.0%	56.6%
Secretary of State	27.0%	51.3%
Judges & Justices	6.6%	26.4%

The governor said that we were not handcuffed to our jobs and that we could feel free to find new ones if we thought the state was unfair. The governor got 7½% in 2001 and would get another 16% over the next 4 years. He made much more than we did already, so his 7½% was a huge raise.

The county correction officers made more than us and their step raises went up quicker. Their starting pay was more and they maximized their step raises in just 5 years instead of 14 years like us. They also got 10, 15 & 20 year incentives.