 | The Cavalier daily Friday, January 12, 1973 |  |
End Of Long Drought For State Employees?
By TIM WHEELER
The pinch of inflation has
been felt particularly hard by
John C. Matthis, an electrician
who has been with the
University's Department of
Buildings and Grounds for
over 20 years.
Though he received a 5%
salary increase last year, from
$6432 to $6720, the cost of
living rose 7.5% from 1970 to
1972, thus more than wiping
out his raise. Mr. Matthis'
present salary was only worth
$6206 in 1970, while his actual
salary at that time was $6432,
which represents a net decrease
in his salary of approximately
$200.
To make matters worse,
taxes, social security and
retirement fund payments
alone have risen sufficiently
over the past two years to
eliminate Mr. Matthis' raise. He
takes home a bimonthly
paycheck now that is actually
17 cents less than what he
received in 1970.
These rising costs, combined
with the effects of inflation
over the past two years, have
eroded Mr Matthis' net salary
about $490.
This case is no exception,
but merely serves to
underscore the deteriorating
economic situation of
Virginia's 50,000 state
employees, of which 4600 are
University employees, who
have grown increasingly vocal in
their dissatisfaction with the
state's poor competitive salary
position.
Relief may be in sight for
the beleaguered employees,
though, in the form of a $38.4
million appropriation
requested Wednesday by Gov.
Linwood A Holton to upgrade
their salaries.
Stressing that "good
government services are
dependent upon the quality of
the men and women providing
them," and that "state
government must be
competitive with the private
sector and municipal
government," the governor
called on the General Assembly
to appropriate funds for state
employee classification
adjustments and salary
increases.
With this request, Mr.
Holton has taken the first step
towards reversing a history of
neglect which has until now
been the lot of Virginia's
public services.
The focus of the governor's
and the legislature's attention
is on the state's classification
and salary system, which has
not undergone as extensive a
review as the present one since
its inception in 1942.
In its present construction,
there are approximately 2200
job classifications, with salaries
ranging anywhere from $277
per moth, the base salary for
custodial workers, upwards
into the range of $1630 a
month, the salary of a chief
engineer with the state
highway department.
Every classification has
from four to six steps in its pay
range, each of which represents
a 5% increase over the lower
one. One-step "merit"
increases are awarded by
agency supervisors for a
worker's experience and
performance. On the average,
an employee can reach the top
of his pay scale in about four
years.
Further increases in salaries
can be authorized by the
legislature, by raising the
minimum and maximum salary
levels.
With such a system of
progressive salary increases and
allowance for adjustments by
| Local Business | State | |
| Custodial Worker | $2.15 Start | $1.73-2.08 |
| Apprentice Carpenter | $2.50 Start | $2.08-2.48 |
| $2.95 after 39 wks | $2.17 | |
| Carpenter | $4.25 | $2.60-3.09 |
| Grounds Laborer | $2.05 Start | $1.98-2.26 |
| Grounds Foreman | $6,600/yr. Start | $5400-7032/yr. |
| Groundsman (Tree Co.) | $2.00-2.50 | |
| Tree trimmers | $2.50-3.25 | $2.08-2.48 |
| Tree trimmer leadman | $3.50 up | $2.83-3.53 |
| Grocery bag boys | $3.00 | |
| Grocery clerks | $3.80 to 4.50 | |
| Electricians | $4.00 to 4.75 | $2.71-3.23 |
| Plumbers | $3.25 to 4.50 | $2.71-3.23 |
appear to have "a remarkably
flexible one," as John Garber,
director of the Virginia
Division of Personnel, describes
it.
But the legislature has failed
in the past to approve salary
increases often enough or in
sufficient amounts to offset
the inflation eroding
employees' earnings. Cost of
living nationwide has risen
7.5% in the past two years,
while wages on a national basis
have increased 15% in the same
period.
The only salary increase
granted state classified
employees since 1970 was the
legislature's appropriation last
year of $16 million, which
went to upgrade salary levels of
only about one fifth of the
classifications, including a
one-step increase for all those
at the top of their pay scale.
Intended to improve the
competitive positions of
classifications with critical
manpower shortages, the
measure fell miserably short
even for those employees who
received raises. By 1972, the
average difference between
salaries paid by the state and
by private sector for
comparable jobs was 10.7%,
according to a study done by
Management Services, Inc., of
MacLean. The same study
uncovered the fact that, although
some classifications are
competitive, computer
operators for example, the
trades and related skilled jobs
such as groundsman, painters,
and steamfitters, are as much
as 19.5% behind wages paid by
private employers on a
statewide basis.
University Personnel
Director Donald P. Corderman
claims that wages for some of
the employee classifications are
even as much as 20-25 per cent
out of line with local wages
offered. According to Buildings
and Grounds Director H.I.
Taylor, a local branch of
Sperry Rand Corp. starts
janitors at $2.08 per hour,
while the University starts
them at $1.73 per hour.
Even more revealing is a
comparison of the state wage
scale for electricians against
what local employees pay: the
top hourly wage paid by local
businesses is 47 per cent higher
than the top state wage.
The major effect of such
discrepancies between wages
offered by the state and other
employees has been staff
shortage, some of which have
reached the critical stage.
"We are understaffed" Mr.
Corderman said of the
University's situation. "We
have almost two times as many
vacancies now as we have had
in the three years I've been
here." He added that he
considered 35-40 custodial
vacancies "as a matter of
course."
Mr. Taylor explained a
dilemma with which all
department heads at the
University as well as
throughout the state are faced:
"I'm sitting in a position that's
going to become untenable,
having to discharge people and
not being able to replace
them."
Through lessening the
shortages by hiring part-time
employees and by training the
rehabilitated to fill full-time
slots, the problem is
approaching an acute stage.
A "whopping turnover"
reaching 100 per cent in the
janitorial staff, is another
symptom of inadequate wages.
According to Business Manager
Richard Shutts, "We are taking
inexperienced people and
training them, then losing
them."
The effects of staff
shortages and high turnover
will soon become increasingly
apparent if something is not
done. In the last six months
vacancies have grown in the
custodial positions, and in the
next six months Mr.
Corderman predicted there
would be visible evidence of
job vacancies.
"Just think how it will look
when the grass isn't cut for two
to three weeks, when the food
is deteriorating. Hospital
shortages would mean closing
floors, and patients would have
to go elsewhere. Where I don't
know.
It is difficult, if not
impossible, to assess the
responsibility for allowing such
a near-crisis situation to
develop. Mr. Corderman and
department heads at the
University are at a loss to
explain why furth no
furthsalary increases have been
made, saying they can only
recommend increases to their
superior,Mr. Garber.
Mr. Garber, in turn
explained that he could only
recommend increases to the
governor who must decide the
size and number of
appropriations he would
request to the General
Assembly in each biennial
budget. In the budget for the
present biennium, Mr. Holton
reduced the Personnel
Director's payroll request by
roughly 50 per cent in
presenting his requested
appropriations before the
legislature.
Final authority rests in the
legislature, however, who
demonstrated such authority
last January by approving only
half of the governor's
requested allocation for
classified employee salaries In
'Just Think How It Will Look If The Grass Isn't Cut For Two To Three Weeks'
increases have been approved
by the legislature since 1951:
two 5 per cent increases in 1968
and 1969 and a two-step 10 per
cent increase in 1970. For the
five year period from 1967 to
1972, the consumer price
index rose 25.5 per cent
effectively overwhelming the
salary increases.
Though not wanting to
"second-guess anyone else
judgment", Mr. Garber
asserted. "The state cannot
afford to operate with less than
reasonably competitive rates of
pay, because I don't think it's
in the taxpayers interest to
operate on a basis of cheap
labor." He did acknowledge
that the state's competitive
situation had seriously
deteriorated since 1970,
primarily because of inflation.
To some extent, the
legislature's reluctance to
appropriate salary increases
could be explained by the
legislator's ignorance of the
true situation, one legislator
suggested.
But by the end of 1972, no
member of the Assembly could
honestly plead ignorance of the
state employee's plight.
According to Del. Roy Smith
(D-Petersburg), "many vocal
groups of state employees
made their dissatisfactions
known" to the legislators in
the past year.
The grievances of state
employees apparently reached
a critical mass last year, and
their dissatisfactions focused
on four issues, the principal of
which was their frustration
with their eroding incomes.
Another sore point surfaced
in the group health insurance
policy which the legislature
established for classified
employees last year. As Mr.
Garber described it, the $12
million "plan was designed to
give as generous a plan as the
state could afford." He
admitted that the plan had
been oversold, with much of the
advance publicity leading employee
believe the state was
providing free insurance.
"It was not pointed out
that the benefits would be
varied," Mr. Garber continued.
Two options were offered
under the state's plan which
every employee was required
to select; the state provided
free coverage to the employee,
but he is required to pay for
the family option, a situation
that draws fire from several
University sources.
Before the state plan was
adopted, the University had
maintained its own employee
health insurance plan, but
dropped it in favor of the
state's policy. Under the new
plan, an unmarried University
employee pays about $14 a
month less than he did with
the University's plan. Those
who elect the family plan are
not so fortunate, the average
savings to an employee with a
family is only four dollars a
month, according to
Mr.Taylor.
For some, the state policy is
actually more expensive. One
secretary who is divorced and
has a dependent daughter, paid
$21.13 under the University's
Virginia Personnel Director John Garber
$29.18 a month. Gov. Holton
and state officials may remain
adamant about the value of the
state's insurance plan, but at
least one secretary is
unconvinced.
On a more strictly local
level, pay parking on the
Grounds had emerged as a
bone of contention betw
University employees and the
administration Mr. Taylor
explained, "It annoyed people
in two respects: one, they had
no voice in the decision; two,
they were faced with having to
pay to park. To them that
means paying to work."
Thus, there was an uproar
among employees last summer
when the University's new pay
parking system was announced.
After worker's delegations had
finished appealing the decision
and circulating petitions, the
$24 yearly fee was suspended
for employees. Of note was
President's Edgar F. Shannon's
acknowledgment that the fee
would constitute a serious
financial burden to the
University's lower-paid
workers.
Now paying a one dollar
token parking fee, the
University's employees will be
required to pay the full fee
with the first uniform salary
increase approved by the
legislature, thus providing one
more expense to chip away at
their long-overdue raises.
All these frustrations
coalesced, this past year not
only in Charlottesville, but
throughout the state, in a
fragmented but determined
campaign to make state
employees visible and to bring
their economic distress to the
attention of state officials.
Letters, petitions, even
personal delegations were sent
to the offices of the state
Personnel Director and of
legislators. One of the more
publicized such expressions of
discontent occurred last
summer, when the
maintenance employees of the
Medical College of Virginia
Hospital staged a 'sick-in',
failing to report for work one
day in apparent dissatisfaction
with their wages. There are
even rumors of a union being
formed at Georgetown
University Hospital.
It is somewhat more than a
rumor that University
employees are attempting to
organize an association to
represent them in dealings with
the administration and the
state. At this time, according
to a spokesman, there is no
organization of employees, but
a charter for such an
organization is being drawn up.
Once that is done, there is
nothing that prevents
membership from being
actively solicited, he added.
Partially through these
actions and partly due to the
growing realization among
legislators that the state
employees' situation is
approaching emergency
proportions, the General
Assembly is now apparently
firmly committed to bringing
state salaries up to a
competitive par with the
private sector.
If approved, and there is
certainty among legislative
leaders that it will be, the
$38.4 million in salary
increases requested by Gov.
Holton would not be applied
equally to all classifications,
but would be apportioned to
each classification in amounts
deemed necessary to make
each salary classification
competitive.
The funds will be parceled
out this way to reestablish an
internal consistency among the
relative salaries of all
classifications, making them all
equally competitive. Previous
uniform salary increases and
unsystematic partial raises
approved by the legislature in
the past had created this
internal inconsistency .
With all of these measures
virtually assured of passing in
an Assembly suddenly grown
responsive to the needs of state
employees, only one question
remains unanswered, besides
the unanswerable one of
"Why did it take so long?"
That is: What will assure that
the intolerable situation will
not recur? Simplification of
the classification system and
surveys of the competitive
position of state employees'
pay will help.
The final authority, though,
is the General Assembly. But
with state employees moving
toward some form of
organization to represent their
interest on Capitol Square, the
Commonwealth of Virginia
may have to answer to its
employees should it ever
neglect them like this again.
| The Cavalier daily Friday, January 12, 1973 | |