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AFSCME Council 31 Executive Director Henry Bayer is not impressed with the recent report on how to fix the state pension mess.
Imagine there was an employer who sent its employees notice each month that it had electronically transferred their pay to the bank account that they designated.
Imagine further that, in fact, the full deposit had never actually been made, that the entire amount to which the employee was entitled, legally and contractually, had never been sent.
And finally, imagine the problem was discovered — that some of the pay owed had never been received.What would your remedy be?
Well, if you’re the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, a group of self-appointed guardians of the public trust, you’d fix it by cutting the pay of the employees who had been shortchanged.
Go read the whole thing. It’s an interesting take.
Meanwhile, Bayer also had some harsh words for Gov. Blagojevich in Bernie Schoenburg’s recent column. During his inaugural address, Blagojevich said, “Four years ago, standing before you, I looked back and what I saw was a government that was failing our people, a bloated bureaucracy, costing taxpayers millions, for no purpose, no results.”
“I think it’s highly unfortunate that the governor chooses to use that rhetoric,” Bayer said in an interview at Springfield’s AFSCME headquarters last week.
“I know that in some circles, the rhetoric plays well, but it doesn’t jibe with the reality, and I think it’s a great disservice to the thousands of state employees who come to work every day and try to keep order in our prisons and care for the mentally ill and care for veterans and try to make sure that people who are applying for unemployment benefits get the benefits that they’re entitled to in a timely fashion - all of the things that state employees do and all the services they provide.”
“To denigrate them by saying, well, they didn’t used to work and they don’t work … it’s not true and it’s really time for that rhetoric to stop.”
posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 9:03 am
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I think Bayer makes two good points.
Comment by Left Leaner Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 10:03 am
Bayer needs to get real. Terminate the pension program and start a 401(k) program. For that matter, some performace based pay might be good too. And while we are at it, let’s cut some off the excess fat off the payrolls.
Comment by Anonymous Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 10:11 am
Bite me, Anonymous. No wonder you were too much of a wimp to post your name. You need to “get real,” starting with doing a little fact checking. Hmmm, are you with the Civic Committee?
A good read of that report shows a spin of the issues and numbers one might expect out of Blago’s office instead of the cream of LaSalle Street’s business elite.
These gents (not a lot of minorities or women in the group yet) have made up their minds about the issues, and don’t confuse them with the facts.
Their “save a billion dollars a year” conclusion is backed by absolutely nothing in the report.
They criticize the benefits, saying switch to a defined contribition/401k plan for new hires, not realizing that the combined costs of paying todays pensions, the huge IOU, and future 401k’s won’t save money for decades, if ever.
They criticize the investments of the pensions based on a few Stu Levine news clips, yet sit in silence when one of their own strongarms a pension board to not be fired despite lousy investments. (See last week’s post in re: McCall.)
I won’t even bother to comment on the rest of that nonsense post, except to note to Rich-”Exhibit C-they’re back.”
Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 10:40 am
Blagojevich is talking out of both sides of his face here. On one hand he has increased dramatically our state social liabilities through programs like AllKids, which increases state personnel needs. On the other hand, he bashes the existing state personnel whenever he can and finger points at others regarding costs. He cannot have it both ways.
You want government to wipe your butts? Then pay for it! Blagojevich is selling voters on the idea that everything is free if you blame the right people. Well, that is not leadership.
Blagojevich is an opportunist politician smelling the air and directing voter’s discontent with his administration against the state - while at the same time being governor. He is purposefully misleading people and mistreating the people he expects to lead. As he heaps work on state employees, he also enjoys publically whipping them so he can look good.
Blagojevich is friend to no one but himself. The longer he stays in office, the more apparent this becomes. His confrontational behavior is not a sign he is fighting for voters, it is a sign he fights for himself.
Comment by VanillaMan Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 10:42 am
Believe it or not AA is right! The cost to the state of Social Security and whatever they would contribute to a 401k would far exceed the cost of public employee pensions…and the feds would not allow any social security “holidays” whenever the state was short of cash.
As far as Henry is concerned,I wish the rank and file would make some leadership changes for their own good.With Henry, when all is said and done, a lot gets said and very little gets done.
Comment by Bill Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 10:51 am
Like many people I think the concept of unions is great but the practice is very different. I learned early as a public school student that the unions were almost solely interested in protecting the bad teachers and increasing their pay. My experience in government has been the same. The union resists most attempts to streamline work or get a fair days work out of employees. Rather than work in partnership to improve services, the union throws up road blocks. While they need to advocate for workers, they also need to recognize that “management” is trying to serve the public.
Comment by Objective Dem Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 11:28 am
This Dem agrees with Objective Dem. I think unions do a disservice to their members with rhetoric like Bayer’s. Also, AA saying we shouldn’t terminate pensions and start 401(k)’s because it would take years to achieve any great savings seems like self-perpetuating mumbo-jumbo. Let’s start saving taxpayer money as soon as we can. By the way, any private sector company will tell you do save money swtiching to 401(k)s.
Comment by Niles Township Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 12:39 pm
Bravo to Bayer for standing up to Rod’s smears. I was sick and tired of Blackshere being Blago’s thrall and shill.
Comment by Saw Joe Hill last night Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 12:42 pm
Mr. Bayer is representing his union workers and also all state workers who might get railroaded here. Benefits earned are just that - earned.
And earnigns should be paid in full.
Comment by Mr. Ethics Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 12:53 pm
Niles,
Private sector companies have to pay social security regardless of what type of pension plan they have. The state does NOT. The minute the state ends their pension plans they will be required to match the employee’s ss, which I think comes to about 6 3/4%.
It would cost the state MUCH MORE to end their pension plan and start a 401k. Try to get the facts straight and not buy into the reactionary rhetoric.
Comment by Bill Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 12:55 pm
Niles, the Civic Committee are the mumbo jumbo salesmen here, not AA and his friend Henry. Any private sector company will tell you that their 401(k) switch saved money for one and only one reason-NO UNFUNDED PENSION LIABILITY!! The Feds won’t let private firms do that.
The State of Illinois ain’t in that situation. Our $41 billion IOU (and promised benefits) are what make these armchair analyses not worth the paper they are printed on.
Another issue to ponder-the State pension funds pay about one-fifth the average cost of a 401(k) for the cost of any investment manager-even if the XYZ Stock Fund earns your 401(k) the identical amount it does TRS or SURS, the 1% cost disadvantage per year over a career is significant.
Why do you think wealthy individuals don’t buy mutual funds? They can buy at “wholesale” and save the high fees.
PS: Save the claptrap about paying 17 basis points for Vanguard index funds. TRS and SURS pay less than 1.
Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 1:05 pm
PS: Right on, Bill. You are absolutely correct about Social Security.
Comment by Arthur Andersen Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 1:06 pm
Can someone explain HOW 401k’s would save money?
Oh wait, it’s by cutting the pension benefit, which is now $18,000 a year on avg.
So Niles and Objective want to cut seniors’ $18k/yr - and you call yourselves Democrats? Isn’t this exactly what Congressional Dems just spent a year fighting? Or did you think Bush was right to try gutting Social Security in favor of 401(k)s?
Comment by Reality Check Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 1:11 pm
If AFSCME is so unhappy with Blagojevich, they should have had the courage to actually endorse the one candidate who best represented their interests–Rich Whitney. AFSCME will continue to be taken for granted so long as they continue to fail to force candidates to actually compete for their endorsement; and simply not making an endorsement isn’t good enough, because it’s just a wash.
Comment by Squideshi Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 1:53 pm
Part of the problem with the state civil service is that the bulk of employees are largely unskilled or underskilled and undereducated individuals working in a 19th century system of human service delivery. Keeping front line job requirements low so as to allow a maxiumum number of the politically connected to potentially qualify is an age-old political stratagem revived with gusto by the Blago administration. This adds up to tens of thousands of underskilled and undereducated individuals making far more than they could ever make in the private sector. And they are working for us–or claiming to work. And once they get the jobs, they can’t be fired, ever, unless they commit extremely serious crimes.
This is not to say that state employees couldn’t upgrade their skills if they wanted to. But why bother when you can make two or three times as much as Harry down the street who is starting his own business. Unlike Harry, you never have to worry about losing your livelihood if you work for the state. Free health care. Almost-free pensions. Little accountability. Don’t have to work to hard. Seniority rules.
Most state services could be privatized but if we insist on paying these above-market prices for staff, couldn’t we at least get more intelligent, harder-working staff with real credentials.
Now somebody is going to talk about some genius engineer who invented something. Of course, a few geniuses happen to take a state job now and again. But the bulk of the AFSCME workforce is
undereducated and undercredentialed despite their hefty compensation.
Comment by Cassandra Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 3:29 pm
Squid -
Didn’t Rich Whitney lose?
Comment by Reality Check Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 3:31 pm
I think Cassandra is being far too hard and broad in her statements regarding state employees.
The majority of those I have met are hard working and try to do a good job. Many state positions pay better than private sector counterparts, but that doesn’t mean they are overpaid. The flipside is many government jobs don’t pay nearly as well as private sector jobs and there is no potential to make a windfall, like the business owner cited by Cassandra. In regards to job security, most state employees I know are afraid of losing their jobs due to “politics” or layoffs.
Going back to the issue, one of the problems is the union spends too much effort defending the worst employees. Good employees are demoralize and the bar of acceptable behavior is lowered. Because the squeeky wheel gets noticed, the bad employees also create a false impression that state employees are bad employees.
The other problem is many of the worst employees become active in the union in order to secure protection. Not only do they build alliances with people who can fight for them, but if they are disciplined they claim it is retailation for union activity.
If we want to attract and retain good government employees, we should not bash them for political points like he governor nor sink to the lowest common denominator like the union.
Comment by Objective Dem Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 4:25 pm
Actually, there have been a number of studies showing that the full compensation packages of government employees across the nation are worth more than those of comparable private sector employees. It’s no longer the case that the tradeoff is lower salaries for job security. Now public employees have both higher salaries and ironclad job security. They may worry about being laid off. But few actually have been, even under
Blago. Most of his staff reductions came from not filling or eliminating vacant positions.
As to the issue of working hard, it’s not really relevant. Most Illinois public agencies are badly managed by political hacks and there are no consequences for non-performing employees, so how hard they work is up to then. But the bar is set so low for entry into most state jobs than whether they work hard or not is beside the point. State employment is not supposed to be welfare. We own this company and if we have to pay these prices we deserve highly credentialed staff who got their jobs through a competitive
process…not people who had political connections or couldn’t get a job anywhere else.
Comment by Cassandra Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 5:28 pm
Mr Bayer: You have been making inflammatory statements about Governor Blagojevich for a while. Even after your members were awarded a 13.4% pay increase in the last contract, while MC employees had to surrender 4% to pension payments. Even after Governor Blagojevich granted you the ability to assimilate numerous position titles into your union without any bargaining resistance.
The governor won without your assistance–now its time to pay the price. I hope to sit across the table from you next spring as both unchewed food and unmitigated drivel spew from your sewerhole, all the while enjoying your fruitlessly feeble attempts to sponge more for your bargaining unit. Rest assured I would sit far enough away not to get hit by the food and spittle that Nancy P. suffered last time! Ickie-Nasty.
Comment by Master of the Obvious Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 5:29 pm
Cassandra - thanks to the state of Illinois I now have a Bachelor’s degree and am on the Upward Mobility list to move upward and onward. I will agree with you that there are a lot of state workers out there who won’t try to improve and I really can’t imagine why. The state paid for my tuition and some lab fees, leaving me to pay for my books - that’s a pretty cheap education if you ask me. In the process of going to school, I’ve received two promotions in addition to the education. I do work for my paycheck and will continue to work for it, and keep trying to move upward into the system as well.
Comment by Sahims2 Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 5:31 pm
Gov. Hairbrush needs to know he is a “STATE EMPLOYEE”. He is by far the biggest slacker there is in doing the job he is paid for, i.e. GOVERN.
Comment by MIDSTATE Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 5:33 pm
Does anyone here know how to play this game?
Comment by steve schnorf Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 5:37 pm
I just did a quick web search and found evidence that private vs. public pay comparisons are more complex than Cassandra claims.
Here is a bit from an article in the Milwaukee paper:
“When comparable jobs are considered, the bureau (of Labor Statistics) has found that the private sector tends to pay better salaries for professional and administrative occupations, while for many technical and clerical positions, the public sector pays better.
A study done last year by the State of Washington looked at a range of 100 state jobs and found that public-sector workers there earned 16% less, on average.
“We have some employees that are paid more, and some that are paid as much as 35% less,” said Dorothy Gerard, assistant director of Washington’s Department of Personnel.
As for benefits, studies show private-sector employers are more likely to offer life insurance and long-term disability than public employers, while public-sector employers tend to offer more generous pensions and retiree health insurance, two benefits that tend to be the most costly for employers.”
Another factor that needs to be considered is the location of the job. State salaries are the same state wide. In comparison to private sector, the state pay may be high in Marion, but low in Chicago.
Comment by Objective Dem Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 6:30 pm
I have been at the State for 8 years and earn my pay everyday. After being hit by downsizing in the private sector and nearing age 40 I took a 50% pay cut.
Before you start spouting off about state workers being uneducated do you homework. For the job title I am in a 4 year degree is required. Then they start you out at 21K a year.
I also have a Masters Degree in Business Administration. As I said before I went thru 2 downsizings and at age 40 traded income for job security.
Amazes me how everyone thinks we are all lazy and sit around drooling on ourselves. And cutbacks - when I started there were 9 people in my area. Today there are 4. Again not complaining just stating the facts.
Comment by State Worker w/ MBA Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 6:51 pm
At my agency, a college degree is required and starting pay is $22K. I agree with Henry Bayer. The state has been balancing the state budget for the past 20 years with our pension fund so taxes would not be raised. I say return our pension deductions to us (with the interest it earned, of course) and let the state raise taxes.
Comment by Emily Booth Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 8:28 pm
- Reality Check - Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 3:31 pm:
Squid -
Didn’t Rich Whitney lose?
—
Elections are not a zero-sum game. Rich Whitney received more than double the number of votes needed in order to legally establish the Green Party as a major party statewide; and he did it despite undemocratic ballot access requirements, a legal challenge by the Blagojevich machine, exclusion from the debates, limited media coverage, people’s fear of the spoiler effect, and a refusal to accept any money from corporations.
2006 was a leg-up for the Green Party. It’s a stepping-stone that only guarantees better results in the next election. I consider that a victory.
Comment by Squideshi Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 8:42 pm
There was a time when Henry Bayer’s words meant something. By sitting on the sidelines in this last election, not only did he not demonstrate the courage to defeat the governor who he believes devestated AFSCME, he further alienated himself from blago, ensuring that AFSCME’s plight will not improve for the next four years.
The governor’s responsibility is to the citizens of the state — not to the employees who work for it. While they work hard and deserve to be treated fairly, they are done a disservice by the man who heads their union. He is the reason that so many have a low opinion of the unions. His goals are not to protect the rights of his members, but rather to grow his union, thus his dues collected.
By the way, how much money does Henry Bayer make?
Comment by Buck Naked Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 9:17 pm
Does anyone realize that two of the people on the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago get pensions of over 600 thousand dollars? The average pension of a state employee is $18,000. That’s if they don’t get in the deferred comp program on their own. Do you think these people have a clue about what middle income people need to make it every month for medication, food, housing, heating? I don’t think so. Illinois’ pension program is right in the middle of the 50 states; it’s not like we’re way up top, high paid cushy retirees. Maybe some will be due to the huge amounts of overtime being worked, but with regular pay, and no deferred comp, state retirees are not living “high on the hog”.
Henry has some good points. The union will fight Blago’s attempts to take anything back that they already have. It’s not AFSCME’s fault that the merit comp employees don’t have a union to back them up. Some of us dont’ agree wiht what Blago did to the merit comp employees who deserved raises, and there are some who deserved raises. There are many others who didn’t and still don’t (and many are chomping at the bit for those raises coming due - we had lots of ratings being done at the beginning of the month).
Cassandra - you need to spend a month working in different parts of DHS before you start speaking about things you know nothing of. Process the more than 50% increase in requests for assistance, food stamps, etc. that you have to do when you’re not doing clerical work becaues there’s no clerical staff in your office. There are offices down from 40 staff to 15 trying to do more work. 24 hour centers working below staffing with 7 day a week mandatory overtime. You wanna spend more time with your co-workers than your family? Come spend some time with me.
If you haven’t walked in my shoes, you can’t complain about the work I do. You can’t compare what I did in the community to what I do for the state.
Comment by Tessa Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 9:40 pm
Buck;
I will agree with you that AFSCME spends way to much time on the little nit oicky issues and then when it comes to major stuff they have no teeth.
I am represented by AFSCME and they get about $35 or so a month from my pay. Yeah they also bargin and secure increases in our contracts but I feel there are some pretty big issues they could be fighting for on my behalf. When ever I bring some of them up to my steward and union president all I ever hear is we tried that in the last contract but put it aside to speed up the talks or get the percentages we got, etc.
The other problem is that union membership is not required. If you want you can be a fairshare member and pay somethign like 85% dues but you do not get to vote - but you still benefit from the contract and have the union behind you on grievences. ASk Henry what the percentage of full members is as conpared to fairshare. At my agency only about 40% of those eligible are full members.
Kind of hard to go in and try to secure changes when you only have 40% of those effected actually full union members.
Also the same people are constantly filling little nit-picky grievences - constantly come in 10 to 15 minutes late and then complain when mgt tries to correct it. It has gotten so bad that if we are 1 minute late they (mgt) has to say something to us because the union has used this as a defense tactic. IE - you didn;t say anything when employee A was 1 minute late but you tried to discipline employee B for being 12 minutes late.
This is my first experience working in a union environment and I feel the union really does not do alot for us when all is said and done.
They have approached me several times about becoming a union steward and I just laugh at them.
Comment by State Worker w/ MBA Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 9:43 pm
At our very small agency, we have 8 people with degrees, two of whom have Master’s degrees. In my unit, we have 4 people and 3 out of 4 have degrees. The one without is the supervisor, been around almost 30 years but smart and thorough. We provide a very necessary service statewide out of our little area. So much for lazy, incompetent workers.
Comment by Disgusted Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 10:31 pm
I agree with Buck Naked. AFSCME should have made a stand in the last election against Blago, but they didn’t have the guts to do it. AFSCME never asks their rank & file members what they want - they tell them what they are going to do. It always amazed me - I don’t think they have ever thought about who pays their salary, nor do they care. I am a retired State employee who worked in a stressful, short-staffed environment. I worked with some wonderful, hard-working people who are still there. It’s just like any other joh - there’s good employees & there’s bad employees, but I will say where I worked, the vast majority of those were good.
Comment by Southern Illinois Voter Tuesday, Jan 23, 07 @ 11:26 pm
“The door is always open.” Ambitious, well educated and talented state employees can always leave if private sector, or county/municipal/federal employment is more promising. And I have sensed a brain drain of these types - state lawyers, engineers, professors - leaving state employment with the current environment. But the key thing is this - until state employee turnover exceeds that for comparable work in the private sector, and there are few qualified and willing people waiting in line to replace them - the state can’t help but assume everything’s OK, despite online b#tching and general grumbling among the “troops”.
If people are so in love with their jobs or their line of work that they’ll stay there with no raise in 4 years or whatever, the taxpayers are getting a good deal of sorts, even though quality might suffer. It will take a mass exodus of qualified employees, and a resulting meltdown of state services, to force the “economic” issue. And the state might opt to solve it with more privatization, rather than raises, pension sweeteners, etc.
Comment by Six Degrees of Separation Wednesday, Jan 24, 07 @ 12:15 am
Six Degrees - Where I work, people never used to leave before retirement. I’m talking 40 years of service before they left. Now, we’re lucky to get people to stay through the 6 week training period, much less one to two years of service. Once they find out how much overtime there is, and what the workload is like, they decide they’re better off looking elsewhere. Thankfully we do have a core group of staff who are willing to put in the extra time and effort to make sure the center is staffed 24 hours a day and that the people we serve get the services they need.
I have a degree. I’m not supposed to work the floor on a regular basis, but I put in 20-40 hours of overtime a pay period - and I only get it when no one else signs up for it or they get ahold of my on the phone and beg me to come in. I do it to help out my burnt out co-workers and the people that I work for. They, too, are citizens of this state, even though most of them can’t/don’t vote.
The state would rather pay out 1.5 million hours of overtime than hire the staff to fill the holes in staffing we have in the agency. Believe me, the grumbling has been done face to face and they choose to ignore it.
Comment by Tessa Wednesday, Jan 24, 07 @ 6:29 am