Response to report on city contracts | Philly

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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Response to report on city contracts

On Monday, the Daily News published the latest "It's Our Money" report on employee benifits. We've be getting a lot of response to the article and I wanted to re-print one of them below. The following comes from a city worker who did not feel the op-ed was fair. Here it is:

Just read yours' & Waxmans' "hit piece" on city workers. First big lie: the average salary of DC33 workers' is $33,000/yr NOT $46,120/yr. Who is giving you wrong information, the mayor? Why are you trashing us to the general public? What's your hidden agenda, certainly not good governance?

Now, as to LOW salaries. While you & most of America were basking in the economic boom of the past two decades, we didn't. As city workers, we made less than comparable jobs in private industry. We took less money in exchange for JOB SECURITY (also known as a "PROMISE") and a pension. We received measly raises over the past decade and a half. Now, because the city was run into the ground by corrupt-o-crats, you want us to sacrifice MORE than we already have.You want to break the promise made to us. I say NO to you & your bunch of prevaricators & obfuscators.

I've sacrificed, now it;'s someone elses' turn to sacrifice. How about getting city council crooks, the BRT board, and all of the ward leaders & committee people to take big cuts? They screwed up, they ought to pay for their mistakes, not city workers'. get off our backs, stop disseminating false information & get your facts straight. You should go to the city website, under JOBS and check out pay ranges.(The vast majority of DC33 workers' are pay grade 12 & below, and their aren't all that many DC33 workers' making above $40,000; they're mostly work crew supervisors or equipment operators': trash truck drivers are NOT making $46,120/yr in base pay). If you went to J-school, you're old enough that they taught fact checking; Why don't you TRY it.

What do you think? Was the article fair or did we leave out information that would have provided more context? Have city workers given up high salaries for good benifits and job secuirty?

Posted by Ben Waxman @ 1:44 PM Permalink | 19 comments

Comments

Posted 02:39 PM, 07/02/2009

dreinterests

The article was fair. Most likely they wouldn't make more in the private sector otherwise they would have left. Worse, the kind of people you attract with low salaries, easy jobs, guaranteed employment, and fat pensions attract people who don't like work, don't do more than they are specifically told, put in time until they retire, and oppose change no matter the cost. these types of folks are fine in limited doses but any organization made up entirely of these kind of people will become maddeningly bureucratic, overly resistant to change, and generally have a sense of entitlement. Obviously this fits the city workers to a tee. I know because I also work in a place like this. While each individual may not make as much, overall, they make more than an equivalent private sector department would.

Posted 02:46 PM, 07/02/2009

jn3

I think you should also print the whole story. You are leaving out certain facts that make the city look like the victim here. The city is the one who did not complete it's pension fund obligations for years and now the fund cannot meet it obligation so the city wants workers to contribute more. The city is the one who didn't pay so they want city workers to pay back the city's debt. Also, most years the city workers do not get a raise in line with the cost of living increast. Most years city unions get around 3% if that. This years COLA to council and the Mayor's staff is over 5%. Are they gonna offer the city workers that? I don't think so. It is almost impossible to get the city to honor contract awards. Just an example. In the last Firefighter's contract firefighters were awarded basic safety gear to be paid by the city by April 1st. The city has yet to provide those items. Also some provisions of contracts awarded over 5 years ago have still not been provided or abided by. Why don't you ask why the city refuses to honor the awards instead of blaming city workers for all the city's financial woes. The city managers and politicians are mostly to blame for this.

Posted 03:11 PM, 07/02/2009

woogie

As a federal government worker, I agree completely with the city worker. We took a job with less pay because of the security and the benefits. Unlike the private sector, most government jobs don't give bonuses, they only give very small raises and the maximum salary is very low compared to most private business. What the article and the previous poster don't seem to understand is that the job security was probably the main reason that most government workers took their jobs. If these government jobs were so much more lucrative than private businesses, then why were there so many unfilled gov't jobs out there (before the unemployment rate got so high, now everyone wants a government job). The writer and the previous poster seem to be supporting the mentality that the financial industry has had over the past several years, "let's go out and make a whole bunch of money and blow it on dumb stuff that we don't need instead of saving it for emergencies." Then, after living the high life for so many years and putting down gov't workers; when times get rough they come knocking on the government's door asking for money. Basically, private sector employees chose higher risk careers in return for potentially much higher rewards. Government workers took lower risk jobs in exchange for security and piece of mind. While dreinterests is right that "these types of folks are fine in limited doses but any organization made up entirely of these kind of people will become maddeningly bureucratic, overly resistant to change, and generally have a sense of entitlement," keep in mind that the private sector mentality of making as much profit as possible without considering the long term consequences of what you are doing is what got our economy in the mess it's in now and without the help of our "lazy" government, the unemployment rate would be at least double what it is now.

Posted 05:28 PM, 07/02/2009

CleanupPhilly

Kids, while you may feel that you are "owed" something because you made a "sacrifice" by not working in private industry, there is little law or other reason to believe that entitles you to any extra-market treatment. The city can and should hire contractors to do this work where possible if the same or better service can be achieved at a cost savings to the taxpayer. If you wish, you can then join the "private" market that you laud as the source of high salaries. I think you'll find it very competitive in reality.

Posted 05:37 PM, 07/02/2009

CleanupPhilly

Jn is right that the city did not even come close to making the city's share of the pension obligation, and the problem of DROP is part of that. I would, if I were the unions sue to force the city to make timely pension payments and catch the fund up to its required level. Call your state rep and demand that the city NOT be allowed to delay payments to the pension or to refi the pension (another form of pension payment delay and procrastination). That is your right to demand. But will your unions organize on this critical issue? I hope so, because you are owed a viable pension plan.

Posted 06:40 PM, 07/02/2009

nebulus

Your reporting has been slanted and anti-union. You have not shared the whole picture and have certainly not included information that is publicly available and, at least by inference, you reviewed (e.g., the Pew Report). This is a criticism I have leveled before. You do not do investigative reporting, per se, but you do report those pieces of information that fit your perception (or Tierney's) prescription.

Posted 07:08 PM, 07/02/2009

nebulus

Woogie speaks eloquently on the issue. However, I would add one piece and that is that the civil service is designed and has served to mitigate the impact on the citizenry that the pendulum of political whims can have. The civil service has ensured that core services continue to be delivered to the citizens of this city regardless of who sits at city hall. That some of these civil servants are lazy is a given, as it is with any business. The sad side of the civil service is that while it protects city employees from arbitrary dismissal because of politics it has also served to protect the lazy by insuring there is a process to dismissal (i.e., disciplinary/due process). This is all complex and perhaps beyond the ken of the reporters or the word limits imposed by their anti-union owner/Editor in chief. It would simply be nice to read some balanced reporting that relies on facts-all facts and fewer emotionally charged phrases.

Posted 08:20 AM, 07/03/2009

Manny Yunker

What deals were arrived at in the past occurred in the past. Each contract is a new deal. The question that the author should have asked is "Are city workers willing to give up pay increases for good benefits and job secuirty?"

Posted 11:06 AM, 07/03/2009

Thom65

City workers have already given up pay increases for benefits and job security. Over the last 15 years, city workers salaries have increased at an annualized rate of only 2.2%, less than the 2.5% inflation rate for the same period. I've been reading the comments on this website for awhile now, particularly the articles about the City budget, but this is the first time I've posted. It seems a lot of posters don't have much actual knowledge of what they're posting about, only their perceptions. In another article, one guy wrote that city workers need to accept that the days of 5% yearly raises are over - the last time city workers got a 5% raise was during the Goode administration. Another guy wrote that he was sick of the guy who picks up his trash making $75,000 a year - the top salary for a city trash collector is about $31,000. Even the supervisors only make about $40,000. You can look it up on the City website.

Posted 12:05 PM, 07/03/2009

DennisR

Thom65 that top salary for City trash collector does it include the overtime thats paid on holiday weeks when they work the saturdays?

Posted 01:29 PM, 07/03/2009

Thom65

Even if he works 11 Saturdays in a year (one for each City holiday), that's only another $2,000. To get to 75K, he'd have to work 80 hours a week for nearly the entire year. The point I was trying to make is that, despite what some of the posters here seem to believe, noone's getting rich working for the City. Another frequent theme among the postings is that city workers are all stupid, lazy, and unskilled. Well, I doubt that cutting pay, pensions, and benefits is going to attract many smart, energetic, and highly-educated people to the city workforce. I do agree with nebulus' comment that the civil service system provides to much protection to bad employees. The system also offers no reward at all to those who do do a good job.

Posted 01:41 PM, 07/03/2009

jjkalicki27

Dennis, you think those OT Saturdays double a sanitation workers salary?

Posted 02:34 PM, 07/03/2009

MB6

I didn't notice negative slant in the article but I agree with the city worker's frustration about the situation. I particularly agree with the argument that low-wage workers are being asked to make up for bad decisions on the part of incompetent and/or corrupt leadership in city government. The outline of salary and benefits is extremely interesting. It would be more fair and useful if it included the salary and benefits of City Council, the Mayor's office, and other non-union employees. But it is clear that DC 33 workers are the lowest paid employees; low enough pay to likely be a hardship in supporting families and home ownership. But since they are the most numerous, that makes their total expenses a budgetary target. However, it's a loser for the city to focus so strongly on the margin of marginal pay increases for very low paid workers. Instead, the range of $11,709 to $15,240 annually per worker for healthcare is the number that should be the greatest focus for anger, especially now that Congress will soon vote on healthcare reform. Curiously, rather than ask or protest why those numbers for health insurance are so high, the city is lazily pushing that burden onto its lowest paid workers. It's just accepting the costs of those premiums without argument. It appears that the city is willing to shut down services in order to push for concessions from low-wage employees but it's not willing to apply pressure on the health insurance companies to renegotiate those rates. This matters: "A few private health insurance companies have built a near-monopoly in the Pennsylvania market, burdening families and businesses with premiums that grew 6.4 times faster than wages from 2000 to 2007" (http://hcfan.3cdn.net/648e0302462c448dd3_6om6b909w.pdf) We also need better information about the costs of the pension plans. We need to know how much profit taxpayers give to private insurance and pension firms, not just the "costs" of city employees. That's the margin to scrutinize.

Posted 02:43 PM, 07/03/2009

DennisR

No, but i think one is taking total payroll and the other total salary.I was suprised to see guarantee overtime in the contract negotiations. But i think we are all upset at the wrong people I agree with the city workers comments about our politicians getting us into this mess but is that same worker ready to vote them out of office for not growing our city so there would be no cutbacks? I am, I will not vote for any incumbent in the city poitical machain till i start seeing cutbacks in drivers, Pr people, or other politcal patronage.

Posted 02:52 PM, 07/03/2009

MB6

PS. What is the definition of "fat" pension benefits? City workers have pension plans while a huge amount of non-govt employees have no pensions at all. And that is problem that will not be solved in these negotiations. But even the best pension plans only pay workers a small portion of their former salaries. These salaries don't seem like they would create fantastic pension payments, unless you're comparing them to no payments at all (which is the situation for many workers in Phila). Other than DROP beneficiaries, do the DC 33 or DC 47 workers score that well on pension payments? If so, is that due to retirement at relatively young age?

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Ben Waxman reports and blogs for “It's Our Money.” Before joining “It's Our Money,” he was a regular contributor to the Philadelphia Daily News op-ed page and former contributor to the blog Young Philly Politics. He studied political science at Juniata College in Huntingdon, PA.

Doron Taussig is the Project Manager for “It's Our Money.” He is also a graduate student in communications at Temple University. Previously he worked as a Staff Writer and News Editor for the Philadelphia City Paper.

Dave Merrell is the Web Editor for "It's Our Money." He comes to the project from Philly.com, where he is a web producer. Originally from upstate New York, he moved to Philadelphia after graduating from Haverford College with a degree in math and economics.

Anthony Campisi reports and blogs for "It's Our Money." Originally hailing from Central Jersey, he came to Philadelphia while a student at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied intellectual history. He also writes about transportation for PlanPhilly, an innovative urban planning website started by PennPraxis, the consulting arm of the Penn School of Design.