January 2010 They will be back

Maine State Employees are already facing cuts of as much as fifteen percent over the next two years.

The legislature says the cuts will expire on June 30, 2011. I don't believe them and I don't know anyone who does.

So far not a penny of the wasteful contracting in the State has been cut. Jobs that can be done by State Employees go to private firms at up to twice the cost because the politicians "can't increase head count".

Tens of thousands of square feet of empty State owned buildings will be either heated for no reason or torn down to ensure that landlords can keep getting rich.
California has led the way for years
The future of Maine is shown by the present in California. Well before the State of Maine started talking about shut down days and take backs California was already demanding furloughs and pay freezes. Now Arnold is coming back for an additional 5% pay cut for all State employees and massive cuts to services for the poorest that will in turn cause thousands of layoffs for State Employees.

That is bad for CA., and we can expect the same or worse in Maine in January 2010 unless we find the waste and stop it now.

The Maine legislature is already talking about how to gut the pension system and you know it won't be only for new employees. Thanks for thirty years.......Get out!

The good is that California State Employees know how to fight back and how to work with the State at the same time. They have been fighting the outsourcing of State jobs to more expensive contractors. They have just won their first major victory.

State Personnel Board backs Local 1000 on outsourcing

Ruling ousts contractor; state workers to take over security at SF Civic Center

Backing a challenge by Local 1000, the State Personnel Board (SPB) has disapproved an expensive outsourcing contract for private security guards – costing up to $10 million – at the San Francisco Civic Center.

The ruling forces the Department of General Services (In Maine the Bureau of General Services) to bring these security jobs into state civil service, where state workers will take on those duties.

The SPB executive officer backed Local 1000, finding that the state failed to prove a legal justification for using private security guards - rather that state workers.

Two months, later the full SPB board sided with Local 1000. The SPB’s board’s order gives the DGS 120 days to fill the positions with state employees. Over the past three years Local 1000 attorneys have challenged more than 120 contracts, winning more than 80 percent of the cases.

Is this the time for us to start spending our MSEA dues to challenge the State? This is the kind of campaign that the public would support.

The Civic Center Plaza ruling may boost a larger security service contract challenge that is expected to be heard by the SPB this summer. If Local 1000 wins that case, state workers could be filling about 900 security guard positions all over California that are now be held by higher-paid contractors.

Local 1000 research and independent studies have shown that outside contractors cost twice as much as state employees who already do the same work.

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