For most of the state’s current two-year budget, state employees have kept vital services smoothly flowing to the people of Wisconsin, despite taking 16 furlough days and watching unfilled vacancies take the place of retiring colleagues. Each employee has been doing more with less, and less includes a smaller paycheck to take home to his or her family.
Of course, state employees didn’t cause the budget problems facing Wisconsin and the nation. It doesn’t take a long memory to understand that a calamitous drop in state and federal revenue was caused by Wall Street’s meltdown. And, of course, that meltdown followed on the heels of uneven trade agreements that for decades green-lighted the export of good American jobs.
Correctional officers and nursing assistants didn’t cause these problems. But, so far, they are the ones our incoming governor is singling out to pay the price for the predicament in which we find ourselves.
Scott Walker talks about bringing public employee benefits into line with those in the private sector. Of course, talking only about benefits creates an incomplete picture. Unless you look at total pay and benefits, talking about one element of compensation is useless – unless the only goal is to stir resentment and score political points.
Yes, public employees tend to pay smaller co-pays for health insurance and retirement security than some in the private sector. But that is because it has been cheaper for public employers to pay for benefits instead of direct wages. For example, the employer pays Social Security taxes on a dollar put into wages, but not on a dollar put into Wisconsin’s well-run pension system. Consequently, both sides get more bang for that buck.
Public employees have for decades agreed to lower wages in return for better benefits. That’s no surprise. But what may surprise many is that in apples-to-apples comparisons of total compensation, public employees still tend to make less than their private-sector counterparts in comparable jobs.
Professor John Heywood and associate professor Keith Bender of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee recently carried out one such comparison for the Center for State and Local Government Excellence. They found that, on average, total compensation is 6.8% lower for state employees and 7.4% lower for local employees than for comparable private-sector employees. Other studies support these findings.
Whether or not you believe the work of these distinguished academics or think such numbers are accurate, singling out only one component of compensation without looking at the complete package is guaranteed to present a less accurate picture.
Unfortunately, it is an inaccurate picture that happens to play well in these difficult times when it is easy, but hardly statesmanlike or journalistically responsible, to stir resentments and create scapegoats.
Pitting worker against worker is hardly forward-looking economic development policy, unless the vision is to make Wisconsin more like Mississippi instead of a beacon of innovation, quality and educational excellence.
Which brings us to the immediate conflict: the incoming governor’s threats against any who dare contemplate completing long-overdue contracts that reflect the sacrifices already made by state workers.
Walker wants to undo many months of negotiations that finally have led to resolution of a contract covering the two-year budget cycle that will be complete in six months. Not content to focus on the future, on the budgets he will shape and the contracts he will be able to negotiate once in office, Walker wants to attempt to rewrite the past.
The contracts he wants to stop memorialize sacrifices already made, including $103 million in concessions from employees covered by the contracts, employees who understand very well the difficult times we face.
These contracts contain zero wage increases and no market adjustments. The 16 furlough days cut pay by more than 3%. The contracts include a 6.9% increase in the employee share of health care premiums for employees in the standard plan and a 5.3% increase for employees participating in an HMO. Employees also will increase their pension contributions under these contracts.
Finally, these contracts are accounted for in the budget passed by the current Legislature and governor. It is fitting and entirely proper that the current Legislature and governor should be the ones completing this contract.
State workers have been doing their jobs and continue doing their jobs under difficult circumstances. For this, some grandstanding politicians vilify them.
The next Legislature and governor will have plenty of time to establish their budgets and negotiate their contracts. It is time for the current Legislature and governor to finish their jobs and complete work on these overdue contracts.
Marty Beil is executive director of the 23,000-member Wisconsin State Employees Union, AFSCME Council 24. The union represents front-line state workers.
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