State union workers will have to wait for 1% raise

Madison ? A Democratic senator is upset that some 3,000 union state workers won't immediately share in the 1% pay raise put forward by Gov. Scott Walker's administration for each of the next two fiscal years.

Those employees have to wait for contracts to be negotiated over their wages with the Walker administration. In the past, pay increases for non-union employees and separate contracts for union workers containing their pay increases were typically handled around the same time out of fairness, according to Sen. Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton) and his office.

"Passing a state employment compensation plan without including any represented state employees reeks of punishment," Erpenbach wrote Thursday in a letter to Walker.

Walker himself has described the 1% pay increase as a "general wage adjustment" for state employees in press statements, though he has qualified it that it was only for eligible employees.

"For those state employees who chose to vote for their union's recertification, the negotiations over wage increases will happen as a part of the collective bargaining process between their union and the state," Walker spokeswoman Jocelyn Webster said.

A June 25 letter from the governor's administration to lawmakers makes clear that the salary increase applies to all employees "except for those bargaining units that are certified at the time of the adjustment."

There are currently relatively few state employees in unions that are certified, or officially recognized for the state. There are seven relatively small certified unions covering building trades workers, patient care workers, education workers, state attorneys, local prosecutors, researchers and public safety officers.

Together, the seven unions have about 3,012 members who will not be receiving the general 1% raise.

Some of the nearly 1,200 union patient care workers may already be receiving a raise through separate channels, according to the Department of Administration. Assistant district attorneys will also receive a different set of automatic raises under a program that lawmakers incorporated into the state budget.

Webster said she couldn't comment on where contract negotiations with the remaining state unions now stand. In March 2011, Walker signed a law repealing collective bargaining on all subjects except salaries for public employee unions in Wisconsin.

Even the bargaining on salary increases is typically subject to the rate of inflation.

Making the situation even more complex, a group state public safety workers such as State Patrol troopers have retained all their union bargaining.

Current union members are a fraction of the state's more than 69,000 full-time employees.

But the union numbers might grow at least modestly. A group of 5,900 prison guards this month voted to form a union after the wage increase went into effect, though that vote could still be contested. If the correctional workers union does form, then its workers might not be eligible for the second of the 1% general wage increase.

This year's hike, which shows up on employees' paychecks at the end of July, is the first in four years for most rank-and-file employees and the first in five years for most managers, according to the administration.

The pay raise will apply to most state workers, including employees at University of Wisconsin System campuses. Employees making less than $15 an hour would see an additional increase of up to 25 cents an hour.

Walker's Office of State Employment Relations released the plan to lawmakers last month and it was then approved by the Legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations.

In the plan, elected officials would get the same pay bumps as typical state employees, but not until after the November 2014 elections. The raises would boost lawmakers' salaries from $49,943 to $50,950 and the governor's salary from $144,423 to $147,328.

Through mid-2015, the raises and benefits changes would cost $142.6 million, with $65 million of that coming from state taxpayers, according to letters to lawmakers from Gregory Gracz, director of the employment relations office. The rest would come from the federal government, revenue from fees and other sources.

Source: http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/state-union-workers-will-have-to-wait-for-1-raise-b9961851z1-216947971.html

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