Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/26007
Monday, February 28, 2011 – Daily News – 3B Union bargaining just a dream for many gov workers JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Whenever Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has asked lawmakers to weak- en benefits for state employees, his proposals have met little resistance from workers. Mississippi is among those states — many in the South — where most gov- ernment employees do not have the right to collective bargaining, the benefit that has caused a political upheaval in Wisconsin and has become a national flashpoint for those who argue that public employee benefits are too generous. Those states provide a snapshot of what life is like for government employees who do not have the same union clout that workers in Wisconsin and some other states are desperately try- ing to retain. ‘‘We’ve been holding on by a hair through the polit- ical process,’’ said Brenda Scott, head of the Missis- sippi Alliance of State Employees, which has no bargaining power but pro- vides a voice for state gov- ernment workers to air their concerns before the governor and Legislature. Across the South, gov- ernors like Barbour and state legislatures dominat- ed by conservative law- makers find it relatively easy to chip away at public employees’ benefits or eliminate government jobs because most state employ- ees in the region — even when represented by a union — lack collective bargaining rights. Nine of the 10 states with the lowest percentage of public employees eligi- ble for collective bargain- ing are in the South, according to data compiled by Barry Hirsch of Georgia State University and David Macpherson of Trinity University in San Antonio. Their research shows only about two in five public employees nationwide have the type of collective bargaining rights that have drawn fire in Wisconsin and other states. To be sure, government jobs are still seen as more secure and desirable than most private-sector jobs even in states where public employees do not have the right to collective bargain- ing. In Mississippi, one of the poorest states in the nation, state workers get 10 paid holidays a year, their sick days and vacation days can be rolled over from year to year, and they can retire after 25 years of ser- vice under a defined bene- fit plan. They also have a certain level of civil-ser- vice job protection. But those workers have fewer protections and gen- erally less generous com- pensation and benefits than public employees repre- sented by collective bar- gaining. While pay and perks vary greatly among states, the primary benefit is that governors and law- makers cannot unilaterally impose changes, such as pension reforms, without going to the bargaining table, nor can they impose lay-offs without following union tenure rules. In California, where most state employees are covered by collective bar- gaining, negotiated labor contracts allow state work- ers to retire, collect their pensions and then return to work, allowing them to make more money than before. They also can pur- chase more lucrative pen- sion benefits before they retire. Two independent gov- ernment auditing agencies in California have recom- mended reforming the state’s pension system, even for current employ- ees, but unions there have vowed to sue if the gover- nor and Legislature try to enact reforms outside the bargaining process. Governors and lawmak- ers in states without collec- tive bargaining can make such changes without con- sulting workers. Pensions for new public employees in Virginia, for example, were shifted last year from the traditional defined ben- efit — the type of pension that many governments say they no longer can afford without major changes — to a 401(k)-style system similar to that used in the private sector. The change was made with little fan- fare and no organized opposition. In North Carolina, some state workers are repre- sented by a local of the Service Employees Inter- national Union, but the group has no bargaining power. That leaves employees with no real say over how many jobs would be shed this year due to budget cuts — Democratic Gov. Beverly Perdue has recommended eliminating 10,000 state government jobs, 3,000 of them cur- rently filled. In 2009, Perdue signed legislation that made sweeping changes to the state worker health insur- ance plans, creating higher premiums, deductibles and copays without having to get consent from an strong as what you see in a number of the northern states,’’ said Sue Esty, assistant director of the Maryland chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Munici- pal Employees. Teachers in Tennessee have the right to collective bargaining, but other public employees do not. That is still too much for Republi- cans in that state’s Legisla- ture, who have wide majorities in both cham- bers and are looking to quash teachers’ bargaining powers. employee union. Barbour, a Republican with possible presidential ambitions, came into office on a promise to shrink Missis- sippi’s state government and reduce employee bene- fits. Unencumbered by union contracts, he has scored a number of suc- cesses. He persuaded the Legis- lature in 2004 to temporar- ily erase civil-service pro- tections for corrections employees, which allowed the prison system to fire workers and trim the pay- roll. Mississippi lawmakers also voted last year to make public employees put 9 percent of their own pay into the state retirement system, up from 7.25 per- cent, and they’ve made government workers hired since 2006 pay more for their health insurance than their longer-serving col- leagues. Barbour defends his actions as tilting the bal- ance of power away from unions and toward the side of state taxpayers. He said he supports Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s effort to eliminate most collective bargaining rights for gov- ernment workers. ‘‘When they have col- lective bargaining in Wis- consin, on one side of the table there’s state employee unions or the local employ- ee unions. On the other side of the table are politi- cians that they paid for the election of those politi- cians,’’ Barbour said. ‘‘Now, who represents the taxpayers in that negotia- tion? Well, actually, nobody.’’ In states without col- lective bargaining, public employees are ‘‘com- pletely subject to the power of the governor’’ because lawmakers often don’t want to get involved labor disputes, said Ed Ott, who has been active in the New York labor movement for 42 years and is a former executive director of the New York City Central Labor Coun- cil AFL-CIO. ‘‘It’s really about a bal- ance of power between employer and employee,’’ said Ott, a lecturer on con- temporary labor issues at the City University of New York’s Murphy Institute. ‘‘Without any collective bargaining rights, you have no ability to say, ’Whoa, why don’t we try some- thing else?’’’ Maryland and Ten- nessee have hybrid sys- tems. Some Maryland employees are represented by unions and have the right to bargain with the governor, but there is no binding arbitration and no right to strike. ‘‘We call it collective bargaining-lite L-I-T-E because they’re not as The Tennessee Educa- tion Association, which represents 52,000 teachers, has said the proposal is political payback by Republicans because the group has given more financial support to Demo- cratic candidates over the years. Gov. Bill Haslam has not signed on officially to the movement by his fel- low Republicans, prefer- ring to focus on teacher tenure, expanding charter schools and other issues he says are necessary to improve academic perfor- mance. But he also sympa- thizes with their intent to give the Legislature as much leeway as possible to control costs without hav- ing to submit to union negotiations. ‘‘My job in the state of Tennessee is just like when I was running a company,’’ said Haslam, a former pres- ident of Pilot Corp., a fam- ily owned national truck- stop chain. ‘‘It’s to bring in the very best people to work, to provide the very best product we can, at the lowest price.’’ Like its neighboring states, Alabama does not allow public employees to bargain collectively, even though associations repre- senting teachers and state workers have had some success working with the Legislature Lawmakers have approved cost-of-living raises and maintained health and retirement bene- fits that are better than those offered by most pri- vate-sector employers in the state. Support our classrooms, keep kids reading. 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