Merit-less Raises
By Wes Keene | April 14, 2010 | In Category: General
Most of us would like more money. It’s just normal to want to be compensated well for our efforts. In fact, we want to be compensated for lots of other reasons, too. Maybe your bills have gone up, you’re paying more for groceries or a kid is headed off to college. All those things cost money and it’s almost second nature to want our employers to cough up a few extra bucks. After all, we’re reliable workers. We are all good at what we do, and none of us mess around on work time. It’s only fair that the company would throw a few extra bucks your way.
What if there were a job that paid decent, was almost impossible to get fired from, required no tangible performance targets, and had contractually guaranteed raises? Would you still complain about how much you make? Would you be willing to put in a few extra hours when you’re failing at your job? The teachers unions wouldn’t. John Stossel recently wrote:
“Gallo also asked teachers to do a few things for no additional pay, like spending an extra 25 minutes in school. I’d think dedicated teachers in struggling schools would be willing to spend a little more time with their students. But these teachers are in a union. Their reaction?
Union officials said they wanted to be paid for more of the duties and wanted to receive a higher pay rate –– $90 per hour.”
That kind of attitude is irritating but it isn’t limited to unions. Given the chance to have merit-less raises, most of us would probably welcome the opportunity. What is unique to the unions, is that they may be the only place where you can actually get a raise for poor performance and none of your peers will bat an eye. In Chicago, even Mayor Daley says unions need to get with the “real world” and accept an end to automatic yearly pay increases. The Chicago Sun-Times writes:
“Noting that he is personally taking 29 days off without pay this year to help solve the city’s budget crisis, Daley said, “Government has to diet. … When people are suffering, you can’t live in the abstract. You can’t say, ‘Everything is great. It’s like 20 years ago.’ It’s not gonna be that way. People are suffering. You have to be able to cut back and start sharing the loss that people have.”
Does that include the Chicago Teachers Union’s attempts to hold the Board of Education to a contract that calls for four percent annual pay raises?
“That includes everyone,” Daley said. “I don’t want to take 29 days without pay. But, you have to be able to be able to lead by example.””
Outside of public sector employment wages are down. Those that have jobs are working more hours, doing more jobs to pick up the slack of laid off workers, and they do it for the same pay they received years ago.
Some might complain about the lack of raises in recent times but there hasn’t been much inflation, either. In fact, this year is on track to have the lowest inflation we’ve had since 2003, except for 2009. Just 2.3% inflation is expected in 2010. Four percent pay hikes just don’t hardly make sense given recent economic conditions. Unions will point out that they have a contract, but contracts were made to be re-negotiated. That’s what the State is trying to do, re-negotiate a contract they can’t possibly ever pay for. Do unions think they’d fare better in bankruptcy court?
Our rocky economic times have had one (and perhaps only one) advantage in that costs for most products have remained relatively stable. That doesn’t stop those who live off taxpayers dollars from asking for more, though. Stossel, in another peice on public sector abuses writes:
“That federal bureaucrats enrich themselves during an economic downturn with pay raises — 2.4 percent this year, 4.8 percent last year, 4.5 percent the year before — is bad enough. Now comes word that Uncle Sam is dishing out “recruitment, relocation and retention incentives” to the tune of $285 million in 2008 (the latest year available) to bring workers onto the payroll or persuade them to stay.”
As long as public sector workers feel they are entitled to the same (or better) pay as the private sector, we can look for steady increases in our deficits. In the private sector greed is seldom tolerated past one’s ability to improve business. In the public sector greed is just a way of life.
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