By Joey D. Smith
IT Applications Developer II, Riverside County
I have attended several Riverside County negotiation sessions to show support for our bargaining team. I am honored to be associated with these folks who are exhausting themselves to ensure that working families of Riverside County receive fair treatment in this next contract.
Our bargaining is facing enormous challenges and they have displayed profound courage responding to the county’s unreasonable demands. The county has asked to members to take an 8% pay cut on top of the previous sacrifices workers have already made.
On May 25, our bargaining team endured an endless harangue from the county’s chief negotiator about the dire financial situation. Our bargaining team countered this with public records in the form of the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report.
In fact, the report reflects a robust financial outlook.
County management was unable to respond and ended negotiations.
When the county returned to the table on June 7, they finally responded.
The HR Director looked squarely at our team and asserted that the reason the county is asking SEIU members to take an 8% pay cut is not financial, but “purely political.”
When did it become politically expedient to kick families to the curb?
Clearly the county has sent us their message. Now it’s time, my union brothers and sisters, to send them a stronger message.
The residents of Riverside County deserve the quality services we provide, but stripping workers of modest pay and benefits is not an incentive.
We already face issues with recruitment and retention of skilled workers.
It is patently unfair to ask public workers to endure the hardship of a recession we didn’t create. It is immoral to create structured deficits by granting tax cuts to the super rich and wealthy corporations, then attack working families as the source.
It’s more than immoral – it is politically incorrect.
Are You Ready?
This is the same ole, same ole when it comes to bargaining. Management wants what it wants and is not willing to bend a little. They get the Union to bend and bend and bend, when the union should not be bending as much as it is. If the Comprehensive Financial Report shows a “robust” future then management needs to back off and to say that it is “political” brings a bad light on management as there is actually no need for the cuts they are asking for. Shame on them. And then asking for the Fairness Agreement to be removed from the MOU!! You want your raises, but those of us who are making it pay check to pay check MANAGEMENT DOES NOT EVEN CARE ABOUT US. GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF THE CLOUDS, YOU ARE NOT CELEBRITIES, ABOVE THE REST OF US WHO WORK FOR THE COUNTY. IF YOU DESERVE YEARLY INCREASES, THE REST OF US WHO WORK FOR THE COUNTY ALSO DESERVE OUR YEARLY INCREASES. This is all a sham and a horse and pony show. Reach an agreement, things are not so bad and the budget will be okay.
Joey Smith is right on when he asks the question “Are you ready?” I am ready for a job action if the management simply imposes what they want like they do every year. Are you ready union members? Are you ready SEIU721?
Please team don’t support a bad deal and ask us to vote yes. A bad deal does not mean you lost unless you cave to it and ask the members to support it. Let’s not shut up but put up this time and walk if we need to take that action.
Please team don’t get beaten down and don’t ask us to vote yes on a bad deal as in years past.
Mr. Smith misquoted me in his statement. I did say that public employee pension reform is a political issue; that is obvious, and true across the country. It is not “purely political”, and the request to cut total pay is indeed financial. We have no choice but to endure the hardship of this recession, and public employees are not alone in having to deal with it. Private employers have more often simply reduced their workforce, but some have used furloughs and salary reductions instead. Management does care about this, and we are trying to find ways to address both the County’s needs and the employees’ needs. Management employees have given the 10% one-year furlough reductions, right along side of you. There have been no “yearly increases” – step or COLA – for management or SEIU – since 2009. The economic forecast is not robust by any means, whether you hear it from our budget officer, local economists, or Ben Bernanke. Our Board is committed to seeing the County through this crisis, but all of us employees need to participate in the reductions, or we will simply have to cut services and reduce our workforce.
I was part of the 2010 furloughs for SEIU nursing staff. Before this furlough was enacted, it was brought up by an administrator at RCRMC that doing any type of furlough for nursing staff was only going to cause a problem for the budget and not get the desired result. This person was absolutely correct. More money was paid out in overtime and registry nurses to cover the nurses on furlough and actually cost the county money. When the LIUNA employees were asked to furlough they did at least do a smarter thing by stretching this over a 2-year period. However, in key jobs at the hospital, again overtime had to be paid to other staff in order to get work done (like pharmacy personnel, et cetera). I am not sure what the answer is, but if the BOS wants to get rid of the Fairness Agreement so they can have their yearly COLA pay raises and be able to cut the rest of the employees out of COLAs what kind of message does that send to us as employees. The BOS only wants to give themselves and other management staff yearly COLAS, but the entire workforce will have to give up this clause in the MOU and will probably never be able to get back any type of yearly salary/merit increase.
We need to call in the big guns, the reps from SEIU Los Angeles to help our team in negotiations with the BOS. I am not a rebel rouser, but at this time I feel there is a need for this type of response since management only continues to bob and weave when the real questions are asked of them in regard to the budget and financial issues. If it takes a strike I think we should all be willing to give a little at this point in order to make a point. The County cannot run without its workers and that is what management should be thinking about when making decisions during negotiations.
Your managers may have given the 10% furlough but they are going to get it back in 2012. So tell it like it really is Barb! Stop blaming the union (tax payers) for Wall Street’s political hidden agenda (collapse). Opps did I say that out loud? There it is in a nutshell.Your board is committed to saving their own on the backs of the tax payers. Remember without the workers bees there wouldn’t be ANY (budget), honey. Hence, you wouldn’t have a job. Being less then truthful, at this time of crisis, brought on by the BOS, you, and yours, by way of a cover up is a travesty. Cut the services and reduce the workforce then what? Give yourself another bonus for a job well done?! Get over yourself. Don’t take any wooden nickels Bargaining Team! Keep up the good work. POWER TO THE PEOPLE! Can I get an Amen up in here?
“Management employees have given the 10% one-year furlough reductions, right along side of you.” B. Olivier June 23 2011.
Not true Ms. Olivier. I don’t consider reducing management’s ability to sell their ANU time from 80 hours to 40 hours an equal reduction in income. Now if the management team would forgo those hours completely and not accrue them well maybe you could consider that a cut. Postponing the selling or utilizing the exorbitant ANU benefit is not a cut. Reducing the 401 retirement from 50.00 to 25.00 is also not a reduction in pay. If you really wanted to be viewed as taking the lead in reduction you would have taken the full 208 hour furlough like the rest of us, starting on July 1st 2009. That would have been something to crow about. You didn’t take the lead; you didn’t show the way. You manipulated the numbers to appear as though you were sacrificing along side of us. I did 207 hours of furlough in 11.5 months. Oh by the way you did say ” This is not a financial crisis it is POLITICAL” I was there too.
Mr Smith by the way is absolutely correct about the CAFR. There is no IF about it the County is Financially sound. All you have to do is read the 206 page report.
I have your AMEN Jannie Doe. I am sick of city managers, boards of supervisors and all other management saying that they are “by our sides”. My backside. All they are out for is to continue their extravagant lifestyles, like all the other takers out there, and not give anything in return. They are not even doing their jobs and they are still getting paid. SEIU members are now working without a contract and there they sit in their renovated CAC Building complete with marble floors, countertops, expensive desks, et cetera and are throwing stones. Well, if one small pebble were to hit their CAC Building it would come crashing down. Maybe someone needs to do some looking into all the items the board has approved for themselves and count up the cost. We could probably have saved the need for a furlough just on their backs alone. Lets do what they did in Compton – a march around the CAC Building 7 times and see what comes of it. We have to believe in the goodness and fairness out there in the universe. If they keep taking, they will have to give at some point. It is just good old fashion karma. This is only a political battle because they have made it so. The individual county worker has forgone step increases for the past two years and so have the board, but to ask that they and management only be allowed to return to enjoying yearly step increases and other perks is absurd. The walls of Jericho will come crumbling down!!
My husband and I are finally in the third year of the three year furlough. Yes, thrid year. We are both County Employees. I was furloughed the first year and last year and this, is his turn. It’s been very difficult financially. We don’t live extravagant lifestyles, but this still hit us very hard, due to some emergency situations we’ve had to deal with. Our saving grace has been Springboard Financial. We had to stop using our credit cards and set up an account with Springboard. It wasn’t like we were financing a lavish lifestyle either, we’d use them for emergencies and expenses our income didn’t cover. Now we are two years away from credit card freedom. It’s been very difficult, but we were thinking this would be the end of the income reductions. Now we’re being told our income will be cut another 8%. That’s 16% reduction for my family income. Am I supposed to stop paying on my home of 13 years ? Stop feeding my family ? Or animals ? How about I not put my younger daughter through college ? Or stop paying on the student loan for my older daughter. She has a degree, yet cannot find work. Why does the BOS not care about the employees ? It sure feels like that from where I stand. I’m sure they haven’t had to give up as much as we have. I’d rather give up 10% of what they have than from what I make. Why is there such an anti-union hatred all over the country ? All we ask for is for fairness, is that so much ? We’ve given up so much in the past, the County seems to have forgotten that. I’ve been here a long time, I remember a lot was given up to get what we have. Now they want us to give up more and get less ? What about the 33% raise the BOS got all at one time (back in 1997 or 1998) while we got 10% over 3 years. What about the pay raises we gave up to get the retirement package we have now ? Now they want to take that away too ? I’m sure they will still get that retirement deal. Isn’t that why John Benoit wanted to work for RivCo ?