The drivers who work at my place of employ are all Teamsters. They get paid a more than fair amount of money for what they do, even in relation to the cost-of-living in or near King County (which is like living in California, except that the knob is only set to 8 instead of 11).
While they are always crying about getting paid more (who doesn’t), they also get on edge when city contract time comes around and the non-union hauling companies send their bids in. They know for a fact that their hourly wage increases the bottom line number of how much our employer is going to have to bid to get the contract.
What they don’t know (or if they do, it always hides under their fearmongering rhetoric) is that the cities we deal with are 99% pro-union and wouldn’t award a contract to a non-union shop even if Dread Cthulhu came down and demanded they do so (they’d try “reasonable negotiations” with him).
Which makes me wonder if the guys have seen this story
State worker pay bill turned down: Defeat means delay of wage increase to nonunion members
An attempt to give pay raises to union and nonunion state workers on the same day was rejected as lawmakers amended their version of the state budget this week.
Rep. Gary Alexander, R- Thurston County, introduced an amendment to the budget bill that would have given all state workers their pay raises July 1. As written, the bill starts nonunion worker raises two months after the raises for union workers.
“We heard the outcry from every corner of the state the last time we did this. It just sends the wrong message to employees about how we value them,†Alexander said.
House Democrats introduced the delay in raises for nonunion workers in 2005. Rep. Helen Sommers, who serves as chairwoman of the House budget committee, said the delay was a reward for unionized workers, who negotiated the raises in their contracts.
If, like me, you’d fight tooth and nail to stay out of a union, then you are going to be punished by your bosses; the Governor and the State Legislature, via the authority granted to them by the voters. You are not as valuable to them as a union member, so you don’t get your pay increase.
Technically, there are no non-union-dues paying employees working for the State of Washington. Everyone has to pay dues, the “non-union-member” dues just aren’t as high because they don’t get representation (and yes, if you don’t even want to pay non-member dues, you get fired).
Now, if you read the last paragraph of that quote, you’ll see that the raise was negotiated by the union for their new contract, and that is the crux of the argument the state Dems have for denying the non-union members their raises.
However, if the reporter would have told you that the worst performing member of staff in the whole of the Washington State Bureaucracy; the guy or gal who is at the very edge of being fired for insubordination, being late every day for a month, missing too many days due to their alcohol/drug habit, or stealing from Washington Taxpayers, that that person will get this raise before the best performing non-union staffmember, then that argument would go right down the toilet where it belongs.
People should get raises based on their performance, not just because they managed to make it through another year without getting fired.
It is a plain and simple case of discrimination by association, or in this case, for lack of association.
And it should be a crime.
Would you like to know why?
Implementing the delay required almost $8 million in changes to the state payroll computer.
Yes, the Washington State Democrats, in service to me in the Washington State Legislature, just cost me $8 Million so that they could discriminate against folks who don’t like to join unions.
They scream about money for healthcare. They whine about money for schools. The flail about for money for mass-transit. Yet when it comes right down to the bread and the butter, they hate non-union-members more than they want to fix any of those things.
Fuck them in the ass.
Thanks for the link. I print stuff like this out so I can show people the utterly stupid shit the government pulls. $8 million spent just to delay raises to a selected group. Despicable.
As an ex state employee I can say with confidence, having witnessed it myself, that the worst performing member of the staff of most any agency within the bureaucracy will not only receive this undeserved raise before other, more deserving individuals, but in many cases will be rewarded for that continuous bad performance by being promoted and “shifted about” the agency because nobody wants them, but they can’t get rid of them!
I left state service not because I didn’t enjoy my job and the people I worked with – it was this kind of BS that over time, gets to those that care. Who needs it ………….