{"id":3422,"date":"2010-12-21T08:03:28","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T13:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3422"},"modified":"2010-12-21T11:21:04","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T16:21:04","slug":"morning-read-pay-freeze-for-public-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2010\/12\/21\/morning-read-pay-freeze-for-public-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Morning Read: Pay freeze for public workers?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, lawmakers in St. Lawrence County approved raises for public workers, drawing the ire of some legislators\u00a0 this from the Watertown Daily Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“I’d love to be able to tell everyone it’s Christmas every day,” said Legislator David W. Forsythe, R-Lisbon. “To give so great of a pay raise in these times, I can’t support it.”<\/p>\n

Now there is growing talk of a statewide freeze on public-sector raises, as New York grapples with a $10 billion deficit.<\/p>\n

This from the Associate Press, quoted on WNBZ’s website<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A month after \t\t\tPresident Barack Obama proposed a two-year standstill on the pay of \t\t\t2 million federal employees, New York\u2019s Conference of Mayors last \t\t\tweek suggested the state to freeze on all public sector wages.<\/p>\n

The \t\t\tstate School Boards Association, meanwhile, sought state authority \t\t\tto stop raises now guaranteed under law through annual \u201cstep\u201d \t\t\tincreases even when a labor contract expires.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The concept infuriates many union leaders.<\/p>\n

On Thursday night, \t\t\tthe Sullivan County Legislature froze salaries despite labor \t\t\tcontracts that called for 4-percent raises on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legislators have \t\t\tdeclared war on workers of Sullivan County by doing what they\u2019ve done,\u201d Adrian Huff of Teamster\u2019s Local 445 told \t\t\tthe Times Herald-Record of Middletown.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this week’s Adirondack Daily Enterprise<\/a>, the editorial writers urged the CSEA union to compromise with officials at the Olympic Regional Development Authority on a new contract:<\/p>\n

The CSEA says its workers haven’t received raises in years. There are many workers throughout the country who can say the same thing.<\/p>\n

Some workers who have lost their jobs, including those in the 891 state jobs that Gov. David Paterson has decided to ax, would gladly forgo raises just to have a job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So what do you think?\u00a0 Should public employees be satisfied with the jobs they have, given the state’s precarious fiscal situation?<\/p>\n

Or should teachers, police officers, and thousands of other professionals be in line for raises, even if that means higher income and property taxes?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, lawmakers in St. Lawrence County approved raises for public workers, drawing the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[10,4862,20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3422"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}