I don't want a raise. I don't want you to get one either.

E.T.I. 2009

I want to set the record straight. In the next contract I don’t want a raise. The State has had some rough times, but so have we. We have shared the bad years. The contract was changed to give us the “Cliff”. The early retirement penalty was more than doubled. We go year after year with small increases or no increase at all. Every year our buying power in real dollars has gone down because our raises have not kept up with inflation. I don’t want a raise. I want a COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT that will bring us back to what we would be earning if we had only kept even with inflation. Check the U.S. Gov figures here. Look at the annual figures from 1997. http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=CUUR0000SAM&output_view=pct_12mths

I don't want to get too financially geeky. Another little known fact is that the the Gov. changed the inflation figures a couple of years ago to remove the cost of gas and heating costs from the numbers. That way the inflation figures look smaller and wages that depend on a COLA could be cheated. I still have to pay for gas, and oil, you too? One of the things your dues buy is the smartest person in Maine for extracting information and presenting information in a completely honest way. Steve Butterfield has worked for the Union for about 2.5 million years and is still doing the best job possible. When the Union deals with the State both sides use real numbers. We have never lost an argument based on Steve Butterfield's figures. The State has refused to deal realistically, but we have NEVER had the State able to disprove Steve's numbers.

Compared to Inflation State employees have lost money in every contract for more than a decade and that loss is backed up by facts. In every contract for years the State and the Union have used the Consumer Price Index. Year after year we have been taking losses, not making small gains. It would be logical to ask what the Union has done for us. My answer is easy. I ask you to imagine your pay and your benefits at the mercy of a legislature that does not have to face an organized work force. I can just see it now. At every motor vehicles window when you get your plates you would hear "Ya want fries with that?"

Current Employees have lost over twelve percent in real purchasing power since 1990. While our contracts and benefits are used as political footballs by Union hating politicos the facts do not support their arguments. Our wages do not go up year after year. Our "raises" have been less than our sister states in New England, less than any big corporation in Maine, less than inflation. In Maine the general increase in wages has kept pace with or even out paced the consumer price index. State Employee wages have not kept up.

I don’t want a raise; I want a COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT. Make up for the losses of the last ten years. I don’t want to fight for a fair deal year after year. Implement contracts based on the same figures the retirement board uses. Get that ugly fight out of the way and we can all move forward. I want my pay to be Equal To Inflation in 2009.

E.T.I. 2009

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