Do your job, lose your job.

State Employees offer to pitch in and save money

Friday, November 21 2008

State Employees representing the Executive Branch bargaining units with over 9000 employees came to bargaining today with an offer to help with the budget crisis. State employees who have gone without raises for two years in recent contracts, and consistently accepted raises lower than inflation, today offered to help balance the budget by identifying savings and waste in State government.

State employee’s raises have not kept up with inflation for the last ten years consistently leaving them behind the private sector in real income today called for everyone to pitch in.

The State employees represented by the MSEA-SEIU manage lifesaving services for children and adults through DHHS, DOT, and Public Safety. All branches of State government provide necessary services to the people of Maine and State employees stand ready to help save tax payer dollars by ending wasteful outsourcing and bloated contracts to out of state companies.

“Why send our money out of State, when we can hire Mainers to do the work for less?” said one of the Union negotiators, No one knows how to serve Mainers better than Mainers and we will work with the State to identify areas where money can be saved and funds kept in Maine. When we keep the money in Maine it helps our revenue fo ALL Maine citizens!

'We provide quality services." We want to help cut the tax burden said members of the negotiations team.

Many people don't know that some state employees earn so little that they qualify for state services. Even these employees are dedicated to doing their part to get everyone in Maine through these hard times.

There are so many examples of waste and opportunities for savings said another member of the executive branch teams.

We can find ways to save tax dollars.

“State employees pay taxes too and see their neighbors and friends hurting. With the help of their Union State employees have been trying to point out the waste of outsourcing for years and maybe during this crisis the time has come for the legislature to listen to those who know the work best.

State employees are your friends and neighbors and they don't want agencies to close and the public suffer. Mainers will still need to register a car, adopt a child, be sure their food is safe, and educate their children.

State workers know how fragile the economy is at the moment but they know Maine will weather this downturn better than many States because Mainers will pull together.

Saving State services has strikes home when it is made personal. Here is a personal story.

Recently two public safety workers working long hours and many unpaid hours on their own time were responsible for tracking down a sexual predator. The detective work rivaled the best of CSI. These two heroes don't make Hollywood salaries, they don't get a bonus for catching a monster. They did it to keep your children safe.

No one knows how many children may have been saved from this monster. Last week one of these heroes was told they were scheduled for layoff, after saving children their child would have a mother with no job.

I hope the State will work with its citizens to lower costs and I expect the public would question why State agencies would refuse to partner with State employees at no cost in a mutual goal of saving tax dollars.

The State is expecting as much as a half billion dollar deficit and our members want to be part of the solution, we have the skills and the people to replace contracted services, saving both jobs and money for the taxpayers of Maine while improving services.

The workers' contract does not expire until July 2009 but they are in negotiations now in order help find savings in the coming biennial budget.

State employees know they find ways to save the State millions of dollars. They are willing to commit the resources to make this happen.

Update: Saturday November 22

Ground Breaking Meeting of Executive, Judicial, and Community College bargaining units.

In a show of solidarity and strength the three bargaining units that are most closely associated with the biennial budget process met on Saturday to share their concerns, their talents, and to build solidarity.

The theme developed was "The best for the largest number, regardless of bargaining unit". This unprecedented meeting will lead to more sharing in the future and make it harder to pit one unit against another.

"We all share common interests and we all want to help each other" said one of the Union team members.

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Outsourcing Pros and Cons

We don’t need people, technology can answer our questions.

While e-mail and the Web have made strides, the phone remains the primary channel consumers use to interact with customer care. In a 2007 Harris Interactive Research study sponsored by our company, 97% of respondents reported that they most often use the telephone to contact customer service. Today, more than 79.8 billion calls are made to call centers annually, and that is only expected to rise as use of the mobile phone for customer care increases. However, providing one-to-one call center interaction is not always economically feasible.

On the surface, overseas outsourcing—with live human operators—might appear to be a good means to save operational costs. However, research shows that the American consumer sees those that outsourced customer services as providing less satisfaction and lower resolution levels.

Customers are willing to use automated systems for a number of reasons, such as the convenience of ATMs that are convenient, fast and under customer is in control.

Technology will win out in the end because

• It is available 24 x 7.

• It can answer questions without a language barrier.

•Customers can do it for themselves

• Technology is the perfect answer to “I want it NOW”

• Consistent answers every time.

The warm bodies on phones aren’t going away but as technology changes faster than the number of trained support staff the opportunities to implement technology to reduce costs and increase revenue will continue to grow.

Outsourcing and technology don’t add Quality or Value

Cost savings, efficiency, no internal human relations issues, there are a number of reasons to outsource or automate consumer contact centers or help desks. Outsourcing and technology have a proven record of delivering benefits. There are several factors companies should consider before outsourcing vital customer service applications. First the quality of the service should be given priority over cost effectiveness if you want to have long term stability and growth.

Consumers know that support calls are likely to be answered Dallas to India or Viet Nam. For the most customers this has not been a problem but a growing concern is whether their questions are answered quickly, competently, and courteously.

“A sampling of consumer complaints about outsourcing contains comments such as “The worst customer experience I ever had was placing a support desk call that terminated in India for a product purchased in the U.S.”

“If you expect to provide customer satisfaction by providing outsourced help, your long-term success is at risk”

“Outsourced customer service is cost effective for some, but at what cost to the consumer?”

Providing support by outsourcing allows companies immediate savings through virtual operations that need no physical space. They don’t hire, train, or retain employees. Staff can be used and dropped at a moments notice to handle call volumes. On the other hand they lose skilled help every time they reduce call volume, they build no employee loyalty or long term product knowledge.

Outsourcing saves money, but only to the short term bottom end. The customer gets excessive wait times, lowered quality, and on many calls the issue doesn't get resolved in a single session. An American customer reaching many call centers feels disrespected and unvalued. Ultimately, outsourcing removes consumer loyalty and trust.

In my opinion, one of the worst examples of not respecting the consumer is a famous maker of scanning software, also a maker of IVR software. They are in favor of automated response systems. You need to check some of the software they sell in the U.S... No tech support whatsoever with the exception of one free call for installation issue. No bug reporting unless you pay them. The only support a regular user of their software gets is an online forum with FAQs, which was off line for months at a time.

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Welcome New Subscribers

In the past few weeks I have had a number of new subscribers. I wanted to say thank you for coming on board and please feel free to comment. If I do all the posts, and all the writing I will always agree with myself. If I need to start having multiple personalities and arguments with myself in order to get differing view points...............I won't go there, yet. I am not going to have as much time to write as I would like as I am on the Executive branch negotiations team. There will be a number of topics I can not write about, but nothing stops the reader from sharing their opinions on anything.

Pension Funding

Will this be the next bailout?

Exxon Mobil after posting successive record setting profits and receiving Billions in tax breaks has the most underfunded plan of any company in the S&P 500.

Respect for employees? I don’t think so. Big Oil Has A Hole in Pension Funding

While Republicans are still trying to say the free market will solve everything and prosperity will be trickled down, the employees are in the bottom story of the two story outhouse.

While very few corporate pension funds have weathered the economic problems and State Employee and teachers pension funds have been hard hit, plans at energy companies are in the worst shape..

According to an analysis of S&P 500 companies from Citi Investment Research, companies in the energy sector had pension funds that were only slightly more than 80 percent funded at the beginning of 2008, the lowest funding level among any of the 10 industries examined by Citi.

With the drop in the market and the drops in oil prices by the end of October, Citi calculates that funding levels have dropped off another 20 percent, at least, leaving energy company pension funds barely above 60% funded.

“This could result in a need for energy firms to meaningfully contribute to their plans in 2009,” wrote Citi analyst Tobias Levkovich in a report released Thursday, November 6.

Why does it sound like this analyst thinks it is bad that these companies will have to fund their pension funds? Is it because the obscene profits have not been enough and the companies have been short changing their employees to benefit their investors?

“This would come at a time when earnings revisions for energy companies already are sliding sharply alongside plummeting oil prices … and could add another headwind for energy earnings and stock prices.”

The report noted that a substantial chunk of the funding shortfall in the energy industry belonged to just a handful of companies. That included Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, which have been reporting huge profits but still had three of the 10 most underfunded pension plans in the S&P 500 at the beginning of this year.

Indeed, Exxon Mobil had the most underfunded plan of any company in the S&P 500. Exxon Mobil has $27.8 billion in pension plan assets to cover $34.5 billion in pension liabilities, for a $6.7 billion deficit. ConocoPhillips, with a $1.6 billion shortfall, had the fifth-most underfunded plan, while Chevron’s $1.2 billion pension deficit was the eighth-largest of any company in the S&P 500.

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