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In reply to the discussion: This message was self-deleted by its author [View all]LWolf
(46,179 posts)I never wanted to take home more money by cutting what I was paying into SS.
I'd like to have the paycuts I've taken over the last 5 years to be restored.
COLA in my contract went away first. Not just future colas, but the cola we'd negotiated the previous spring. Disappeared; paycheck smaller.
Next the # of days in the contract was cut. Every year. This year, it amounts to fewer days of work. Since I'm paid a daily rate, per day worked, that hurts.
Then, 2 years ago, all step and column increases, based on years worked and further education, were frozen. We're all 2 years behind.
At first, I made up a little of the difference by taking on "extra duty." That's where you work extra hours outside of the contractual day for a stipend or an hourly rate. The stipend or hourly rate, rather than earning an amount equal to what it would be worth in the contractual day, pays about HALF of what I make if you divide my daily rate by the 8 hours I'm contracted to work to earn it. No time and a half for overtime, here. I have to work unpaid overtime just to finish my contractual duties, since they can't be finished in a contractual day. Add the "extra duties," and I'm at work 11 or 12 hours a day, every work day, and end up working on days off to try to keep up. I went in and worked a full day for nothing on New Year's Day so that I wouldn't be overwhelmed on Monday.
This year, I lost a stipend for an extra duty; it's become quite competitive, since so many of us haven't been able to make mortgages with reduced paychecks for the last few years, and those carroty stipends are being spread around.
So...I took on OTHER extra duties to try to make my own mortgage, and discovered that THIS year, they have cut the hourly rate for some of those duties in half. The same job, 50% of the previous pay.
I'd like to get a full contract, and full contractual pay, back. Then I wouldn't have to worry about extra duties. They'd have to hire people at decent wages to get those jobs done, instead of paying us less and less for more and more.
I WANT to pay full SS. At the rate I'm going, I'm not going to have much else to depend on when I retire in another decade or so. I'm going to need it.