Feeling the Pain
Steve T. calls out a lefty blogger and government employee.
My favorite lefty, Zach over at blogging blue is crying about losing pay and how he has a family to feed!
http://bloggingblue.com/2009/05/07/doyle-orders-furloughs-of-state-employees/
“While Gov. Doyle’s plan to cut state jobs and mandate unpaid days off for state employees may be cheered by many - including more than a few conservatives - as Dan Cody points out, it’s important to remember that state employees, while quick to be demonized by many on the right, have families to feed and bills to pay just like any other citizen. By and large the vast majority of state employees I’ve met are good, hardworking people who do the jobs they do not just for the pay and benefits, but because they’re committed to doing their part to make this state a better place to live, play, work, and raise a family.”
I would like to remind everyone what Zach has said in the past –
Zachary says:
September 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Oh, and as for those folks in the private sector who have pay freezes, I’ll just say that’s the chance you take working in the private sectorSo as Zach asks us “So before you cheer the governor’s plan to lay off some state employees and cut pay for others, just remember how you’d feel if you were in the same situation.”
Should we really feel bad?
Um, no. Many of us in the private sector have already seen pay freezes, layoffs, benefit cuts, etc. It’s a necessary and unfortunate consequence of a down economy. I’m not going to shed a lot of tears for those government workers who sneered at those of us who pay the bills. Welcome to the club, Zach.
While I agree that it’s a small sacrifice and hardly a blip compared to what others have taken, I think Zach is right in the sense that some conservatives are filled with a perverse sort of schadenfreude when it comes to state employees. There are people (including some who post here) who have a sort of magical belief that public employees are more likely to be lazy, or incompetent, or unqualified for their jobs, that they’re all overpaid and underworked - and yet nobody really offers any kind of proof to validate any of those assertions.
I think what Gov. Doyle did was necessary and proper, but there’s no reason to cheer about it either. I’m not suggesting that you are, Owen, but I have little doubt that some who hear about it will, and for all the wrong reasons. That’s unfortunate.
Posted by Recess Supervisor on May 07, 2009 at 2326 hrs
and yet nobody really offers any kind of proof to validate any of those assertions.
What kind of proof could one offer - are there standardized tests for government employees?
I don’t believe that all public employees are lazy and etc. But I know that when I contracted at the FDIC I worked directly with an office of ten folks. Four of those guys were lazy, incompetent, and unqualified in different proportions.
Anecdotal evidence ain’t much - but it’s what I’ve got.
Posted by Brian Dunbar on May 08, 2009 at 0014 hrs
Hmm. I haven’t had a raise in more than 4 years. Then again, the contract the company I work for has with Procter & Gamble hasn’t allowed for one. As a professional driver, if I want to earn more I have to run more miles, which means working on a day I’d normally have off. I don’t bitch about it, however. I am grateful to have a job, considering that so many trucking companies have gone out of buisiness. Yet, my tax burden has increased, as has the cost of goods that I need. Extras are fewer, as I don’t have much to spend on ‘frivolities’. If Obama continues on his projected energy path, get ready for even more expensive goods. After all, it takes a lot of fuel to get America all the things it need for life and industry.
Posted by Billiam on May 08, 2009 at 0527 hrs
I’m a non-union government employee and I see it both ways.
To me, it’s the unionized employees and their arguments that make it easy and understandable for anyone, especially conservatives, to mock public sector employees who lose their jobs. The largest union at my employer is a joke. They constantly argue in one way or another that they’re entitled to their jobs. They have no concept of the idea that their employer has to be able to afford to keep them on and that the taxpayers don’t have limitless resources.
When people like that are front and center at budget time, a certain level of rage at public employees is understanable and frankly justified. I personally think it’s idiotic to even allow government employees to be unionized at all.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0606 hrs
I own my company. I get paid handsomely when I actually sell something. The item I sell is very high priced and not being financed by banks these days. Therefore I have not been paid in a year. I depend on salary to pay MY OWN BENEFITS, so that takes a hit too.
The economic climate in this state, over too many years to count, has lowered demand for my product.
Zack: Cry me a river butthole! I will make it because I can adapt. Zack, I will see you squeegee my windshield at 7th and Wisconsin when you loose your job. Don’t be asking me to pay you a living wage or I may just stiff you.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0701 hrs
Gee - I thought that lowering taxes to provide more money for business to invest and create jobs was supposed to be bad. But here we see higher taxes already inacted, (and more to come) but the government isn’t bringing enough in…. wow who would have thought that?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0709 hrs
IMHO, government is largely a service-oriented industry. As such, the vast majority of the cost is tied up in the cost of personnel. When times get tough, the only way to really trim costs is to look at the personnel costs.
I also think that ATV and RS have it largely correct. Many of us in the private sector have been a bit miffed at public employees (mostly the union ones) who have been demanding pay raises and being smug (like Zach) while we have been suffering. It’s all about shared sacrifice until it comes to the union contract, right? So I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over some government employees who have to take 16 days of unpaid leave over TWO years when Wisconsin has double-digit unemployment.
Posted by Owen on May 08, 2009 at 0712 hrs
I would just like these State workers to make the connection between a healthy private sector economy and their jobs. i.e. if we don’t have a good business atmosphere here, with reasonable taxes, the money for their jobs dries up.
No one wishes bad on anyone. Many of us just want these folks to see the correlation so that we don’t for example blow $107 million on the MPS neighborhood schools initiative that went right down the drain. That money now represents almost half the total to be saved by the furloughs.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0740 hrs
Those in the public sector derive their livelihood through the good graces and benevolence of those in the private sector. Too bad most state (unionized) employees don’t recognize that.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0756 hrs
Zachary says:
September 24th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Oh, and as for those folks in the private sector who have pay freezes, I’ll just say that’s the chance you take working in the private sector
That comment really burns me….Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0808 hrs
I would just like these State workers to make the connection between a healthy private sector economy and their jobs.
I would settle for a connection between the workers and reality.
Steve: You make an outstanding point about the MPS squander of over $100 million. This was 1/100th the story it should have been. Little, if any, outrage to a massive display of waste and incompetence. This took money away from everyone and resources away from educating or turning around kid’s lives.
These public sector workers will react the same way the textile workers, steel workers, ad infinitum, react - shock and anger.
I repeatedly ask this group, and I will ask it again, what has the Department of Commerce_Wisconsin, done for this state that is measurable and quantifiable? Still waiting for an answer from anyone. Anyone? Someone????
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0831 hrs
I am a small business owner who has seen our workforce cut in half due to the current economic conditions.
I’ll go out on a limb and say that I would be willing to see our State workforce cut by 25%. If our State is primarily a service provider, I can do with 25% fewer State services.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0831 hrs
There are people (including some who post here) who have a sort of magical belief that public employees are more likely to be lazy, or incompetent, or unqualified for their jobs, that they’re all overpaid and underworked - and yet nobody really offers any kind of proof to validate any of those assertions.
I’ve worked for the Federal government, at NASA and with other agencies. My experience is that new hires into the government are no different than new hires elsewhere, but anyone who’s been with the government as a career is more likely to be lazy and incompetent.
The reason is simple: who, other than someone who is lazy, incompetent, or unqualified stays in a job in which actual productive work is actively discouraged by Civil Service regulations, the government purchasing system, and union rules? I quickly learned at NASA that if you want to do good work, the stuff that doesn’t involve filling out HR forms, running meetings, and pushing paper you want to be a contractor. They do the actual work, while the NASA engineers run interference with the paper pushers. If I wanted to be a brainless, paper pushing middle manager I wouldn’t have suffered through all those engineering courses.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0857 hrs
16 days of unpaid leave over TWO years
...or about six percent reduction in pay…
SIX PERCENT! O, the HUMANITY!
Posted by dad29 on May 08, 2009 at 0916 hrs
I don’t think Government workers are lazy, but when it comes to workers in, say, the Department of Commerce, they just don’t do anything. It seems that it takes more state workers to do a function than private sector employees.
My greievance with state workers is they act like a protected class when it comes to wages and benefits. They are correct, as of today. We hired a state worker and she wasn’t lazy but she had some crazy ideas about things/work she would not do.
Example: She would never take important or time sensitive mail to the post office box before pick up. Her reasoning was: “If the postal carrier doesn’t come and pick it up, it can go out tomorrow.” After the 5th time she refused to take the elevator and walk 20 feet to put a letter in an indoor mailbox, we informed her that the next infraction would force us to find someone else to do this. That wasn’t subtle enough for her until we told her that would also include all of her former duties…
She now puts the letters in her purse. We have been running want ads on CareerBuilder.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0922 hrs
I have a friend who is a hard working state employee and I do not take joy in him losing some of his pay. However, he remains a supporter of Doyle and his policies, which is where I continue to provoke him.
He believes that the enterprise where he works can expand in scope and spending in a time of decreasing revenues without affecting his job. Until yesterday he was right.
Let this be a wake-up call to my friend and other Democrat voting state employees (i.e. all of them). The cost of expanding government may just be your job.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0928 hrs
So I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over some government employees who have to take 16 days of unpaid leave over TWO years when Wisconsin has double-digit unemployment.
Yeah, I was watching the news last night about Waukesha county asking employees to take 5 unpaid days off.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/waukesha/44548707.html
On Channel 6 at 9 oclock they interviewed a lady who had worked for Waukesha County for 25 YEARS and she said “for those of us who live paycheck to paycheck, we are going to be hit REALLY hard by this”
I about fell out of my shoes. She’s been working a cush government job for TWENTY FIVE YEARS. That means she’s had VERY predictable pay and VERY predictable benefits over the past 25 years and SHE’S LIVING PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK?
What the fuck is wrong with these people? How can you have a steady well paying job for TWENTY FIVE YEARS and be living paycheck to paycheck? So much so that FIVE unpaid days is going to hurt you? Good grief.
People like her are there own worst enemy. They’ll struggle to make ends meet off of 60 grand a year just the same as they’ll struggle to make ends meet off of 100 grand a year.
The greedy nature of some people and capacity to live outside of your means does NOT go away once you pass a certain income bracket.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 0943 hrs
Nerdbert, you win the prize. That may be the single stupidest comment I’ve ever seen on a blog.
Owen, you always seem to forget that the state workers you are so quick to denigrate are also taxpayers. If we take their wages out of the income tax pool your wages get to make up the difference. It’s not as simple as a one-for-one.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1010 hrs
Having worked as a NASA contractor for a few years, I can vouch for what Nerdbert wrote. The direct employees were program managers, we did the work. Although I wouldn’t paint all the direct employees with the broad “lazy and incompetent” brush, it is not universal.
It is stupid, not Nerdbert’s comment, but the way NASA and the rest of government runs its business.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1024 hrs
If we take their wages out of the income tax pool your wages get to make up the difference. It’s not as simple as a one-for-one.
While that is true, it is not totally accurate. Remember that the private sector has the option to leave thus decreasing the pool. It’s already happening.
Posted by The Asian Badger on May 08, 2009 at 1100 hrs
Nerdbert: You rock.
Grumps: Why don’t we just make everyone a state worker? Full employment for everyone. A workers paradise. We are already well on the way, let’s just speed it up and get there faster. Budget deficit solved.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1110 hrs
Owen, you always seem to forget that the state workers you are so quick to denigrate are also taxpayers. If we take their wages out of the income tax pool your wages get to make up the difference. It’s not as simple as a one-for-one.
You know for a guy who points out ‘stupid comments’ good grief????
Just for the sake of numbers, if you save 75,000 eliminating a position, but lose the tax revenue that person paid the state then what… you STILL saved 70,000
What is your point Grumps? Or do you think throwing 75,000 out the door so you can collect $5,000 in taxes on that money is a good deal?
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1156 hrs
Grumps wins for the most stereotypical liberal response…
If we take their wages out of the income tax pool your wages get to make up the difference. It’s not as simple as a one-for-one.
Your assumption is that government spending is static and every dollar spent is necessary. The current situation with the state budget is going to prove your sentiment wrong. Will it be painful? Yes, for some. Will it be permanent and catastrophic? No.
After Doyle cuts the state workers and furloughs the others, people will not fall over dead in the streets no matter how hard you beat your breasts.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1159 hrs
Do you really think government workers will be forced to take days off without pay? Maybe daddy Doyle can up their allowance and sweep the cost under the carpet.
I have attended several parties where guests were mostly Milwaukee City employees. It made me sick to listen to them talk about how easy it is to rip off the city by falsifying time records, hiding city trucks behind bars, taking on-call phones with them on afternoon gambling junkets, etc. If I don’t show up at the office I don’t get paid. It’s a simple cause and effect thing.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1213 hrs
Nerdbert, you win the prize. That may be the single stupidest comment I’ve ever seen on a blog.
Coming from you, grumps, that’s actually a null statement.
I never said that all CS employees were lazy and incompetent, just that you’ll find a larger number of them than in a typical business where results are expected. There were a bunch of very dedicated and enthusiastic engineers that I worked with at NASA. It’s just that many of them were ground down over time by CS regulations, and the regulatory paperwork consumed all the time of the engineers, making them little more than project managers.
DARPA, on the other hand, was a blast to work with in the 80s. They were set up to work outside the CS system, almost as a black project.
If you work in the CS you can be certain that your computers will be obsolete. Purchasing mandates that with their byzantine rules. At NASA the CS rules meant that engineers could never get equipment that wasn’t completely useless as compared to what the contractors got, meaning it was 2-3 times harder to get the same work done that a contractor could do.
Then there’s the absolute deadening effect of the loads of paperwork and procedures the government requires. I always thought it was pretty silly that I had to bill DoD projects in 15 minute blocks with detailed descriptions of exactly what I did, like write up that day’s billing.
And then there’s the waste in government that far surpasses anything that would be tolerated even in immense Fortune 10 companies. I’ve done immense companies, I’ve done government, and I’ve done startups. Most startups could be run off just the wasted money of some of the departments I worked in.
Example: I was assigned to work for a couple of years on a test satellite at NASA. That was a blast, it was bleeding edge stuff and we were doing communications work in the 80s that puts anything up there now to shame (dynamic scan and address, etc). We had two departments and probably 30 contractors working on various parts of the system.
Come design review time, we’re told we can’t fly the new boards and system.
Me: “Why not?!”
Mission manager: “There are components in the system that have never flown before.”
Me: “But they’re space qualified!”
MM: “Yeah, but they’ve never flown before, so we can’t fly them.”
Me: “But this is a TEST Satellite. If we can’t fly new components on a TEST satellite when will we ever be able to fly them?!”
MM: “You have to do this with components that have flown before.”
Me: “But we’re doing something totally radical that’s never been attempted before. There’s nothing that’s flown before we could use to do this!”
MM: “...”
Me: “And we’ve spent more than two years and heaven knows how much money working and this and NOW you come in with these requirements?!”
MM: “It can’t fly if it hasn’t flown before.”The only thing out of that that flew was me. I left soon after. I hear the satellite eventually went up, radically changed and downgraded from what we were doing and about a decade later. I don’t want to hear the estimated waste from that boondoggle.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1444 hrs
I am a state employee, although I prefer not to say where.
I agree with the furlough. I think it is VERY reasonable. Most of the people on my team agree with it as well.
Doyle has sponged a large amount of money from us to fuel his WEAC brethren; we provide a lot of value to taxpayers at a fraction of the cost that private contractors do, although I understand the need for them at times, just not all the time at a 20% premium.
Exit question: Do you all think if certain state employees are furloughed, the private contractors that provide the same services should have their contracts reduced accordingly, orthey themselves furloughed? Owen, I would love to hear your or anyones take on this matter.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 1857 hrs
Do you all think if certain state employees are furloughed, the private contractors that provide the same services should have their contracts reduced accordingly, orthey themselves furloughed?
First, let me restate my overall position on contractors… they should be used when it makes financial sense to the taxpayers without substantially sacrificing quality. For example, if there is an IT project that has and end date (like an implementation of a new application), then it might make more sense to hire a contractor - even at a premium - because then the taxpayers don’t have to carry the heavier long term obligations (pensions) for the employee. These things should be evaluated on a case by case basis.
Now to your question… yes. We are in a position that there isn’t enough money to pay the bills. All expenses should be evaluated.
Posted by Owen on May 08, 2009 at 1918 hrs
And Matt… thank you for your understanding in these matters. It’s refreshing to see a public employee who thinks rationally about the real state of our economy.
Posted by Owen on May 08, 2009 at 1922 hrs
There is a company in Meno Falls that - after a couple rounds of layoffs - are furloughing all of their salaried employees for a full week every quarter. The production workers are only working every other week.
Another national company with an office in Downtown MKE has frozen salaries and cut all overtime to try to avoid layoffs.
Two of the Fortune 500 companies in the area have laid off or plans to lay off close to 2000 employees combined.
There are obviously more out there.
To Zach and those that think that Doyle increasing spending and raising taxes on the folks (and their employers) above to try to maintain their own “standard of living” in a deep recession….. boo freaking hoo
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 08, 2009 at 2010 hrs
Matt, my brother contracts for a Midwestern state’s DOT. He got called in after a department of 18 folks worked for 3 years on an Oracle DB project for licensing issues that was supposed to take 9 months. He looked at what they’d done, threw up his hands, got two more contractors hired and they rewrote the whole project and it went live in less than 6 months. They’re on the downward slope now of trying to train the department on running the software and maintaining what they did. His private view is that they’ll screw it up in less than a year and he’ll be called in again.
If you want to quibble about 3 guys making 20% more who are doing the work of 18, we can talk. Admittedly, he makes considerably more than 20% more than the folks he replaced, but not 600% more. And yes, he had to take a 15% pay cut when the econocalypse hit while the DOT workers weren’t touched.
So yes, Matt, I’m certainly in favor of evaluating the relative competence and effectiveness of contractors and state employees. I’m just enough of a cynic and experienced enough to doubt that such an evaluation will be realistic when it comes to technology workers at the very least.
Perhaps things are different in other areas of government. Lord I hope so! I’d really like to believe that not every government agency is farked beyond belief, but it’s an uphill battle.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 09, 2009 at 0224 hrs
Why do public employees get better wages, bennies, pensions, sick days, vacations etc. than those of us who hier them?
That silly little group that revolves around the Capitol society is finally getting some sense pounded into them.Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 09, 2009 at 1049 hrs
I’m an older woman. I’ve been working as a temp for over 3 years at a company in Madison. I make $13/hour with no benefits of any kind. I and my husband manage to get by on that. We buy our own health insurance because the temp agency’s choice sucks eggs. Granted, it’s a catastrophic policy but we find ourselves making sure we maintain a healthy lifestyle.
We live out in the country and own our property free and clear. We’ve always had to live simply but managed to get our kids educated and they are now out on their own as productive members of society.
I would have liked to have a regular job with bennies, but I won’t get into the TMI of trying to get hired. Let’s just say eventually I developed an attitude and decided to become the excellent temp worker that I am.
I know people can live within their means. You won’t find me shedding tears for the state workers. Granted, with two in-laws who are teachers, I’ve had time to develop my “callousness.”
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 09, 2009 at 1154 hrs
Why do public employees get better wages, bennies, pensions, sick days, vacations etc. than those of us who hier them?
I do not believe that public employees make better wages than their counterparts in the private world. I know the guys at the city who do what I do make just a bit less than half of what I do.
The deal is that in return for lower wages and putting up with the onerous regulations that civil service can impose, public employees received better than average benefits and lifetime employment.
This is not a bad idea. We all want things to work well at the DPW and the county clerk’s office: having guys stick around in those jobs for twenty years is one way to make that happen.
Posted by Brian Dunbar on May 09, 2009 at 1322 hrs
“i know a guy, what a way to make comparisons of thousands of people. There have been literary thousands of studies, one very good one locally from WPRI. Taxpayers are getting screwed by government employees. They are paid better, have better bennies, better everything and you can’t fire them for incompetence. Check it our leave the BS home.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 09, 2009 at 1329 hrs
I have searched the WI job postings several times for similar jobs to mine to get comps. The WI employees are paid every bit as much as those in the private sector. Maybe they were paid less at some point in history, that is not the case any longer.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 09, 2009 at 1744 hrs
Just to clear something up, I have yet to complain about the 16 unpaid days off given to state employees; in fact, as I noted in response to a comment at my blog, I don’t have a problem with the days off; I live within my means.
The point of my blog entry was to note that state employees are not to blame for our state’s current budget problems, nor should we be demonized as a result. Lawmakers on both sides put us in the mess we’re in, a perfect example being the Department of Corrections, which is one of the state’s largest agencies. It wasn’t too long ago we went on a prison building spree here in Wisconsin, resulting in the need for dramatically more staff (state employees) to operate those prisons. Obviously that led to drastically increased spending, both for staff and facilities, but the staff only came after the decision was made by lawmakers on both sides of the political spectrum to build more prisons.
Posted by Zach W on May 10, 2009 at 1211 hrs
The point of my blog entry was to note that state employees are not to blame for our state’s current budget problems, nor should we be demonized as a result.
That’s a non-sequiter. GM employees were not the ones who made the decisions that ran the company into the ground. The underwriters at the banks did not establish the policies that led to writing risky mortgages. And so on.
But you can’t pay workers without money. This state has been heading toward a fiscal train wreck for a long time; every governor including and since Gov. Thompson and every legislator in every session since then have been the conductors and engineers. We’re about to hit the wall.
I’m a state employee. I didn’t make the decisions that led to this crisis. I’m not happy about furloughs, who would be? But lay-offs would be way worse. Contrary to what some believe, we have jobs to do. Even for those who are spared in a lay-off, there is simply more work to go around—the government doesn’t tend to close assembly lines, usually we get more work with fewer people. Furloughs are the least disruptive.
Eight furlough days translates into a 3% pay cut. Foregoing the 2% raises is technically a 2% pay cut, but most of us haven’t spent it yet, so it’s not the same as an actual reduction in current pay.
But here’s the issue. Most of the state budget isn’t spent by the “state.” The “real” money in the state budget is in school aid and shared revenue. I don’t know where they are going to get the money to avoid making cuts in those programs.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on May 10, 2009 at 1327 hrs
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