Members of Oregon’s State Employee Unions Get 5% Pay Raises… as Taxpayers Lose Jobs! September 3, 2010 | Filed Under Budget, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Government, Government, Corruption, Jobs, Liberals, Oregon, Pensions, Public Employees Unions, Taxes, Unions, Warner Todd Huston |
-By Warner Todd Huston
Unbelievable. In Oregon the reg’lar folks are losing their jobs right and left. And the bad luck for those actually paying the bills, the taxpayers, gets even worse because Oregon’s politicians have made sure that the state’s public employees unions get an automatic 5% pay raise starting this Wednesday!
5 percent pay increase for state union employees begins Wednesday
SALEM (AP) — A step pay increase of nearly 5 percent for Oregon state workers represented by unions goes into effect Wednesday.
Some workers will get the pay hike immediately and the rest on their hiring anniversary, the Statesman Journal reports.
The 4.75 percent increase will cost the state as much as $16 million through the end of the two-year budget period.
The Department of Administrative Services, which negotiates union contracts with state workers, says the Legislature has already budgeted for the added expense.
Critics like Rep. Dennis Richardson of Central Point says the state can’t afford it. But union officials say the step increase is two years overdue and state workers have had mandatory unpaid days off and a freeze on cost-of-living increases. ____________ “The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” –Samuel Johnson
