Workers eye new contract
They're parole officers and nurses, road crew members and lawyers. A typical state employee is 47 years old, has 10 years of state service under his belt and makes just shy of $40,000.
Without a doubt, many could make better money elsewhere: An average private-sector employee in New Hampshire earned $788.93 a week in 2005. The average state worker made $715.72 - more than $70 less - according to state statistics. And that gap has emerged and grown in just a decade. In 1995, an average private industry paycheck was $508.16 a week; for a state employee, that was $530.51.
State employees often say it's the benefits - the pension system and the no-premium, high-quality health insurance - that's drawn them and kept them through long careers.
A contract newly negotiated with the state, which workers will vote on by mail this week, tweaks that tradition. It offers 10-percent raises over two years while requiring workers for the first time to contribute toward their health insurance premiums, ending with a flat $60 per month in 2009.
For years, state employees said, they traded stagnant wages to preserve their health benefits. Union negotiators argue that at a certain point, that tradeoff isn't worth it.
It's wonderful that everybody can go to the doctor when you're sick, but if you can't afford a house to live in, what good is it going to do you?" asks Diana Lacey, chairwoman of the State Employees Association bargaining team, which represents about 10,000 state employees, around 7,000 of whom are voting members of the union.
For every dollar the state pays an employee, it pays about 50 cents for benefits. Jay Ward, SEA's political director, said he was irked to read in the Monitor a quote from Rep. Fran Wendelboe, a New Hampton Republican, who said she thinks "state employees don't realize the cost of benefits."
"Which is patently false," Ward said. "Of course they realize, because they've made concessions on benefits in the past."
For many employees, interviewed at random last week, the union's argument for this contract seems to carry.
"You can't eat insurance," said Jim Law, 62, a 40-year Department of Transportation employee.
Law, once a union representative, publicly broke with the State Employees Association in the 1980s over dealings he called "underhanded."
He's no longer a union member, so he won't be voting on the contract. But if he were, he said, he'd vote yes.
Law's coworker, Guy Giunta, agrees. "I think in general it's a good contract for the state employees," he said.
Giunta, 56, is a "landscape specialist supervisor," meaning that after highway construction tears up plants and trees, his crews go in and plant, "bringing privacy back to people again."
Like other employees, Giunta called the benefits key to what makes the job attractive. But, he said, in these days of spiking health care costs, the shift toward chipping into health insurance was just about inevitable. "Times being the way they are, we have to contribute something," he said.
There may be a generation gap in support for the contract. Some older employees who've accepted years of paltry raises to keep their health insurance benefits untouched may be less likely to support this contract, Giunta said.
Within union leadership, support is strong. The union's Senate and Council voted 103-17 in favor of it.
But support isn't unanimous. An anonymous e-mail made the rounds through several state departments last week. The e-mail starts: "I am absolutely horrified at the idea of paying for health insurance. Once this door is opened, it can never be closed."
Lacey said she's seen the e-mail. When she and other union representatives held meetings across the state to make the case for the contract they heard the concern: "Oh my god, you're opening the floodgates," as she put it.
But the response is simple, she said. "What I've explained to people as I'm meeting them is the door was always open." Lacey said that New Hampshire is an anomaly - the last state to pay 100 percent of the premium for its state employees - but that it also lags behind pay of neighboring states.
"In order to make the wages more competitive, you've got to adjust the health care plan as well," she said.
As this contract was being negotiated, questions about the ailing state retirement system lingered. The retirement system covers state and local employees as well as firefighters, police officers and teachers.
At last report, the retirement system had 67 percent of the money it needs to pay for its long-term obligations. Several with knowledge of the system say a new accounting system will show that it's actually dipped beneath 60 percent, putting New Hampshire near-last among the state pension systems.
Legislators this year made a few changes to the system while forming a commission to study how to keep it solvent for the long-term.
Rick Manseau, 53, who works as a case manager at the department of corrections, said he's heard a lot of grumbling about the whole benefits system lately. Because of the uncertainty in the pension system, Manseau said, he's taking his retirement at the end of the month.
As for the new contract, he doesn't think it's worth it for those who stay, "when you figure in that we gave up raises for 10 years in order to maintain our health care benefits."
"We don't make that much money, it was always the benefits. And now that door's open," Manseau said. "They're chipping away, chipping away."
source:www.concordmonitor.com
Monday, June 25, 2007
Workers eye new contract
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