State Workers Lose Under Manchin

[hollowdweller]

First he tells them how to answer the phone.

Then he enacts a dress code and they have to spend more money for clothes.

Then he proposes a miniscule pay raise for them.

THEN this morning I hear on the radio he plans to eliminate one of their holidays, which essentially amounts to a pay cut, which even further reduces the amount of the tiny raise he proposed.

About the only thing positive I have seen that he has done for them is putting more money into the woefully underfunded retirement system.

So far as I can see unless I'm missing something Manchin has done more negative things to public employees than Arch Moore, Cecil Underwood or any of our republican governors, yet he received an endorsement from public employees and teachers unions??

[Lasher]

1. What's most important?

I beg to differ with your assessment. Maybe state employees need to answer the phone in a uniform, businesslike manner. Maybe they needed a dress code. And in these days, they should be grateful they got a raise at all.

But are these things more important than the retirement system? Republicans want to gut the system and Democrats don't.

[hollowdweller]

2. How do they want to gut it?

Fill me in.

I think if the government wants it's citizens to have good jobs, with good benefits and to be respected on the job it needs to lead by example. Cutting benefits and letting the cost of living outpace any salary increases is just not something Democrats are supposed to do.

If you look at positions in the Secretary of State, Treasurer, Governors offices and other agencies not filled by the Division of Personell, and you compare them to similar jobs under the Div of Personell pay scale, I think you will find that all of our officials who claim that state employees should be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the masters table pay themselves and people who perform similar jobs much more than "civil service" jobs are paid. They know these jobs should be compensated at a higher rate, but to them state employees are second class citizens.

If people are not answering the phone properly or dressing appropriately that should be handled by addressing the areas where there are problems or complaints. It is demeaning to all the hard working state employees who answer the phone fine and look fine to approach it the way that was done.

[Lasher]

3. Any way they can

Small government conservatives think they want to limit the size of government any way they can.

Actually, I need to qualify this. The size of government has a direct relationship with government spending. Over the past 2 decades, Republicans have spent more than Democrats have. Republicans just sepend money on other things, like the war in Iraq and Dubya's Maginot Line in the sky. But they don't think of military expenditures as part of government spending. Their targets include public services such as FEMA, public works, social programs such as Social Security and Medicaid, and all jobs not in the private sector (except military as I have said).

These Republicans believe the "crumbs" state employees get are extravagant, and would like to see cutbacks in wages, benefits, and retirement. If you don't believe me, call in to the conservative Jerry Waters radio talk show week days from 10 AM to noon, and tell them state employees aren't getting enough pay and benefits, and you feel demeaned because you're being told how to answer the phone. The number is 304-344-9704, and it's on AM 950.

Grover Norquist, the major strategist behind Bush's tax policy, said, "My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Bush's tax cuts have mostly benefited wealthy individuals and their corporations. The resulting scarcity of revenue puts Bush in a very good position to gut Social Security, for example, because he says we can't afford it now.

The Republican Congress and President Bush are slashing away at funding for important programs in next year’s budget. For West Virginia alone, this includes:

$79 million less for K-12 schools
$42 million less for Vocational education
$72 million less for economic development grants
Increased medical costs for over 10,000 veterans
$25 million less for Head Start

Right now state Republicans, led by their idol Don Blankenship, are campaigning for repeal of the state 6% sales tax on food. Already facing fiscal challenges due to federal cutbacks, how would we deal with this loss of revenue? Maybe by laying off state employees, or cutting wages and benefits? This would certainly please the 'small government' conservatives.

Democrats are the friends of working people. The convicted felon Arch Moore certainly was not, and neither is the Republican party in general.