SEIU Strikes Deal For Raises Up To 15% Over Two Years (Oregon government workers)

The Corvallis Advocate ^ | 02/02/2019 | Ian MacRonald

[aimhigh]

The 24,000 public employees represented by the Service Employees International Union 503 reached an agreement on Wednesday to a new contract with raises up to 15 percent over the next two-year budget cycle.

The deal includes larger cost of living adjustments then previous years, but some are concerned this raise in wages could, over time, weaken the controversial public pension (PERS) reforms Governor Kate Brown signed recently.

The average “step increase” in wages (automatic raises applied after a certain length of time in the job) for public employees would be 4.7 percent. There are also no increases in health insurance premiums under the current deal.

Public employees argue that their wages need to be raised to remain competitive, claiming comparable work in the private sector currently pays more. Some reporting contends this claim, citing the most recent Oregon state salary survey, which concluded that the state was a competitive employer.

The Democratic legislative majority was able to set aside $200 million to fund these raises, doubling last year’s $100 million allocation. The deal is still pending a vote by the union members themselves, and then a vote by state lawmakers.

[rexthecat]

Criminals.

[HighSierra5]

Government unions are the biggest conflict of interest in the history of the world. They’re living large while I have to keep paying taxes for they’re retirement. I hate them.

[Major Matt Mason]

Public workers do not have the pressure on them that private sector workers do (it is almost impossible to fire public workers), so no, they shouldn't be paid the same as private sector workers. And, they also get better benefits than private sector workers, which is part of the pay package.

[House Atreides]

More money for our “easy duty” overlords. Yuk!

[minnesota_bound]

This means higher taxes to pay the fat pensions for gov’t workers while the taxpayers cannot save enough for their own retirement.

[Chode]

[Moonmad27]

SEIU is despicable. I worked at two places where my employees were members. As I expected, the union defended lazy workers and was always watching. Only went through one strike but it showed me that my employees, people I usually got along with, turned immediately into angry enemies - us versus them - when SEIU said to do so.

At one place, I left and the employees brought a farewell cake - decorated in SEIU colors. I didn’t say a thing, didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.

[oldtech]

Well, there’s a big part of the problem in many places. First of all there should be no unions for public workers. Secondly, a 15% raise sounds like an awful lot. Thirdly, how do they think they will have enough workers/taxpayers in the private sector to keep this scam going for long? Several other states are a good example of the same thing. More & more people will want to get in on a deal like this & after a while there are not enough real producers to begin to pay for it. The whole scenario is obvious & you shouldn’t have to look very hard to see it.

[oldtech]

I should have read the article better the first time & I would have realized this was SEIU, not gov. workers. Still, it points out a big problem & the end result is that fewer & fewer people who have less than these union workers are having to finance their pensions while in many cases having none of their own.