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DumbshitOnTheRight t1_j28vnfp wrote

Meanwhile, state employees were told to fuck off and accept their 2.5% this year.

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snoogins355 t1_j293tp5 wrote

Not in a union?

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[deleted] t1_j295k5g wrote

No, the union got 2.5%. That’s it. Even thought inflation is like 9%

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snoogins355 t1_j29jt1a wrote

My union got us an 8% raise, $1000 bonus, and backpay to June 2020

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carlwinslow408 t1_j2ac3x2 wrote

Seiu 👊🏻

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defenestron t1_j2e0cgb wrote

The only bad part of being in a union is how stuck you can get with a bad one.

AFSCME IMO sucks. I looked into moving my department to SEIU and it’s even more difficult than unionizing in the first place!

SEIU seems great and really supports all its members.

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mgshowtime22 t1_j2c6tc2 wrote

Mine isn’t under contract and negotiations have basically been unproductive since September. We’re working on the old contract for the past 1.5 years.

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potus1001 t1_j2aqlt5 wrote

If you’re already at the top step of a union contract, than it is just a 2.5% COLA. If you’re not yet at the top step, then it’s a 2.5% COLA, plus a step increase of anywhere from 3-5%.

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[deleted] t1_j2bz98v wrote

If you get a step increase….. which 90% of people don’t get

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potus1001 t1_j2c6q3g wrote

If you have a source for that percentage, I really would like to see it, because I disagree with your statement.

If we’re only talking about union employees, for them to not get a step increase, they need to be at the top step of the CBA grid. The average grid has between 9-11 steps, so let’s just go with 10. Since all new union employees start at step 1, it takes 9 full years for them to reach the top step, 10 full years before they wouldn’t get a new step.

I don’t know the exact percentage, but I’d be willing to bet that 90% of state employees within a union have not been with the state for 10 years or longer.

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[deleted] t1_j2doohy wrote

I pulled 90% out of thin air. The number is actually 100% but I assumed there are 10% out there who must be getting a better raise. I’m under EOEEA. Are you MADOT? Most of my peers have been here less than 5 years and we are only getting the 2.5%. We talk about it all the time and are pretty bitter about it. The way you explain it, it seems like we should be getting more. Are you NAGE or MOSES?

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TakenOverByBots t1_j298scl wrote

Yes, as much as I'm pro union, some people don't get how unions can actually make for worse pay. I can't go ask my boss for a raise. A three year contract is a three year contract.

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James1995MREinfo t1_j29lx1g wrote

In Massachusetts public sector unions are nerfed because it’s illegal to strike.

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TakenOverByBots t1_j29pxhh wrote

Yes thank you! People don't realize this. If you don't understand public sector unions, then don't downvote me. And btw, I have never missed a union dues payment.

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freedraw t1_j2aee91 wrote

Malden and Haverhill teachers and paraprofessionals still did it this year though.

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diplodonculus t1_j29agds wrote

Doesn't that just mean the negotiations on the next 3 year contract should result in significantly higher pay? The union will have significant bargaining power.

Plenty of non-union people are being told to pound sand. They have basically no bargaining power.

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[deleted] t1_j29fu9q wrote

You would think that’s the case. But our last three year contract had 3% per year. Inflation is higher and we are getting less. Working for the state is always portrayed as some some cushy job where you get great pay. I keep waiting for the cushy benefits to start, I’ve been here 6 years, I would appreciate if they could start now.

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diplodonculus t1_j29gbal wrote

So you're telling me that they negotiated 3% inflation raises when inflation was less than 2%?

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[deleted] t1_j29n7cb wrote

I just realized that you thought I meant “inflation raises”. It’s just raises, as in 3% total. And I’m pro union FYI, I just think they are doing a shit job.

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[deleted] t1_j29gkr6 wrote

[deleted]

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Cameron_james t1_j29j05x wrote

I don't know where the "inflation raises" concept seeped into the public's mind. The raises are raises. They are typically 2-4% regardless of whatever else is going on in the world. The MTA is trying to smash up to 5%-6% a year raises, but every town is pushing back. This is why there have been some strikes lately and I predict there will be more. Towns aren't going to pony up 5-6% per year.

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Boomstick101 t1_j29g74s wrote

Yeah. State employee we only retroactively negotiated the three year contract. We’ve got negotiate slated for this year.

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Jackamalio626 t1_j29a1z5 wrote

Yeah, my union at Shaws fucking sucked. They gave us the bare minimum for raises and locked us out of self bargaining.

Unions are necessary but bad unions do exist.

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neonboom t1_j29k4aa wrote

Imagine what you’d get if you had a police union working for you.

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Jackamalio626 t1_j29lsnf wrote

not a whole lot, i'd imagine. See, i dont beat my wife or racially profile and assault people.

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snoogins355 t1_j2a4fw2 wrote

Had a similar situation when I worked at stop and shop at 14. $10 of every paycheck (~$100 for weekend work).

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TakenOverByBots t1_j29ro69 wrote

Whoever keeps downvoting me, please take a look at what educator unions are going through right now. It's horrible. If you don't know, I suggest following MTA. No, we can't "just demand more" and get it. I don't know if these comments are anti union sentiment from those who refuse to believe how little power unions have when there is a no strike clause.

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NoMoLerking t1_j2albp6 wrote

Why are you booin’ him? He’s right.

When I was younger I worked at Filenes very briefly. I had to pay a union initiation fee and weekly dues. In exchange I got minimum wage and no (zero) benefits. Not even a sick day. Useless.

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TakenOverByBots t1_j2b2ul1 wrote

Can someone please explain why you're downvoting me? All I want to know is if this is the anti union people or if it's the pro union people who are willfully misinterpreting what I'm saying, when I think it's pretty clear that I've said that public unions need to have more negotiating power or we are never going to get anything.

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TakenOverByBots t1_j298jfw wrote

Our union got worse.

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snoogins355 t1_j29kms5 wrote

Vote out the leadership

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No-Initiative4195 t1_j2bgny1 wrote

It doesn't matter. I've been in a public sector union for years.. It's like rinse and repeat. You could put a monkey in a suit and call him the new President and expect about the same accomplishments.

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symonym7 t1_j29g5xp wrote

Is it easy to switch employers w/ a union? I got a 2% raise in January and shortly thereafter got a 8% raise (not including bonus being paid out Feb/March) by getting a new job.

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H2AK119ub t1_j28unic wrote

Politicians vote to raise their own salaries. More news at 10.

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randomizeme1234 t1_j28sf98 wrote

Well that seems fair. After all we are paying the sharpest minds to debate the economics of having a realistic minimum wage. Wtf.

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willzyx01 t1_j28w26l wrote

And then they wonder why people don’t vote anymore.

They get paid $200k+, while also celebrate when minimum wage goes up $1 after 15 years of debating.

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Chippopotanuse t1_j296c2n wrote

Oh god…the old “Dems are greedy bastards who don’t care about the working man and minimum wage hasn’t gone up in 15 years.”

Cool.

Well, first, as to governor compensation:

  • How much do you think the executive in charge of 80,000+ employees and $52 Billion+ budget ought to be paid?

  • How does that compare to executive compensation at companies that have 80,000 employees and $52B of revenue?

Second, as to mimimim wage:

15 years ago, in 2007, the MA minimum wage was $7.50. It is currently $14.25. That’s a hell of a lot more than $1. It’s almost double.

But…if you really want to dig into minimum wage history, let’s do that. Let’s see what that debate has been for 15 years. Because 15 years ago, we had a Republican pro-business Governor (Mitt Romney).

Here’s what happened in 2006 when the democratic state legislature wanted to increase the minimum wage to $8.00. (Yes, 8 huge fucking dollars an hour.)

  • In July 2006, the legislature passed a bill increasing the minimum wage to $8.00 an hour, and Romney vetoed it.

Here’s what his dumb ass said:

> “I have spent hours reading a wide array of reviews on the minimum wage and its impact on the economy, and there's no question raising the minimum wage excessively causes a loss of jobs, and the loss of jobs is at the entry level," said Romney when he vetoed the bill.

What did Romney do in response?

  • He proposed an increase to $7.00/hour (which represented a 25 cents an hour increase over the existing rate.)

What did the Democratic legislature do?

  • The legislature voted on July 31, 2006 to override his veto (unanimously in the Senate) thus setting the minimum wage at the higher amount.

Make no mistake about it. If you are a working man and vote R, you vote against your interest.

The Dems have been trying to help folks get better wages and a more affordable lifestyle for decades.

Mitt’s “I did my own research and paying folks more than $8 an hour will kill jobs” statement is laughably false and has never been supported by any evidence.

But by all means, if you disagree, vote for dipshits like Geoff Diehl.

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Bior37 t1_j29olah wrote

>How much do you think the executive in charge of 80,000+ employees and $52 Billion+ budget ought to be paid?

Not 20% more than last year that's for fucking sure.

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Chippopotanuse t1_j29ubzg wrote

  1. You didn’t answer the question. We both know why.

  2. while you might not like CEO pay going up 20% last yer…reality says hello:

> S&P 500 CEO pay rose 18.2% in 2021, far outpacing the U.S. inflation rate of 7.1% last year. But the AFL-CIO says worker wages have made far smaller gains, only growing 4.7% in 2021.

https://fortune.com/2022/07/18/ceo-pay-beats-inflation

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Bior37 t1_j2a4fkl wrote

>while you might not like CEO pay going up 20% last yer…reality says hello: > >

We aren't discussing how much CEOs make, we're discussing what I do and don't like. Just about nobody thinks that CEOs deserve the amount of money they make, and raising wages for politicians to attract CEOs shouldn't be anyone's mission. That just attracts sociopathic business people trying to line their pockets.

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Jackamalio626 t1_j29sgj8 wrote

Not to mention being an executive is the most useless fucking position imaginable.

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hawaiianbarrels t1_j29xhp6 wrote

you’re so right!! That’s why every company in the world pays those people well - they’re completely useless so they choose to pay them more

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Jackamalio626 t1_j29yyc6 wrote

What do you mean THEY?

The executives pay themselves abhorrent amounts of money because they can.

If I have a production team producing my product, a budgetting team managing the resources, and a sales team to sell the product to the consumer, then what the fuck are you even doing other than sitting on the resources barking orders?

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hawaiianbarrels t1_j2a03ag wrote

right! There’s no oversight or competitive hiring practices put in place by the CEO - everyone the world over is just in cahoots even though they never met each other. It’s a miracle since there are thousands of new executives every year despite many of them never having met each other

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Jackamalio626 t1_j2a11bd wrote

You dont need a formal coalition when the ideas and desires of the rich converge naturally.

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Bior37 t1_j2a4h2b wrote

Right? Like, no one thinks a CEO actually deserves the millions they make

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Jackamalio626 t1_j29r5ki wrote

>The Dems have been trying to help folks get better wages and a more affordable lifestyle for decades.

Yeah thats why they just voted to illegalize rail striking, right? To help folks?

The Democrats pay lip service to actual progressive ideas only insofar as it'll get them votes. Once they have them, they'll only do what their corporate masters who funded their campaigns tell them to. They would be right wingers in any other western country.

Your little "lesser of two evils" shpiel to scare people back into line isnt fooling anyone anymore. The democrats have complete control of massachusetts; giving themselves a huge raise while Boston rent spirals out of control is pure unabashed greed.

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Chippopotanuse t1_j29tzmv wrote

Well that’s certainly the baseless talking point that Tucker Carlson screams about all day.

Let’s see what Dems did.

And let’s see what Republicans did.

Dems voted to give the rail workers a raise that their union agreed to with the Biden administration.

And then President Biden signed into law the contract agreement brokered by his administration back in September. It’s a deal that gives workers:

  • a 24% raise over five years,

  • caps on health care premiums, and

  • one additional personal day.

“but the deal is shit because it didn’t give the paid sick days the workers wanted!!!”

Yes. That’s correct. Yes indeed. You got me there.

And why is that? Why don’t rail workers have the sick time they deserve?

Well…because virtually EVERY Republican (all but 6) in the senate was opposed to giving railroad workers sick leave.

> Ultimately, six Republican lawmakers — Sens. Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Mike Braun (R-IN), John Kennedy (R-LA), and Marco Rubio (R-FL) — joined every Democrat except for Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) in voting to approve the paid sick leave measure.

> But it wasn’t enough. Now unions will have to accept the agreement negotiated in September, averting a potential strike, but leaving one of their key demands unmet.

And so, because the Republicans wouldn’t be willing to pass a cloture vote to end debate…the paid sick leave bill never got past these bullshit and obstructionist filibuster rules in the senate.

And the filibuster allows for minority rule by Republicans and blocks key Dem legislation like “paid sick leave for rail workers” (that the rail workers desperately need) time and time again.

So….if you actually support rail workers and want to vote for their best interests - if you want them to have the paid sick leave they wanted….as I said before, voting for the Republican candidates sends a big “fuck you” to them and stands in the way of that.

But vote how you’d like. And if you vote R, well, keep complaining at the sky and internet strangers using debunked and false talking points when Republicans block bill after bill that would help small business owners and hard working people.

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Jackamalio626 t1_j2bxew0 wrote

Oh sure, they got a raise and a single sick leave usage, but you seem to be narrowly avoiding addressing the part where that bill the democrats voted for also illegalize rail striking, completley stripping the workforce of any bargaining power.

That is the most anti worker shit imaginable. Nothing you say can ever justify that disgusting show of corporate loyalty from the supposed "mostly pro union ever president".

Your attempts to downplay it just so you don't have to face the fact that your party is anti-worker is, to put it nicely, pathetic. Your concern with being on the winning team outweighs your desire to actually see anything improve, and it sickens me.

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RhaenyrasUncle t1_j2a607w wrote

This just proves you could hand Democrats a bucket of shit, and yall would still be like: "See? The Dems care about us. Republicans didn't even try to hand us a bucket of shit!"

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SunsetShivers t1_j2bukhm wrote

Wow, that’s one disingenuous way to spin the situation. But that’s business as usual for progressives these days.

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Jackamalio626 t1_j2bvg7i wrote

No, its not.

The democrats are corporately owned capitalists masquerading as a progressive party by having their only competition be a party so far right that its teetering on literal fascism.

They take their orders from the same rich cabal who owns the republicans. They're puppets controlled by the same set of oligarchist hands.

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SunsetShivers t1_j2bz1p1 wrote

I used to consider myself a progressive, then I realized just how ridiculously counter-productive the rhetoric and motives of progressives were.

A progressive will look at a role call vote for paid sick leave where 49 Democrats vote Yes, and 44 Republicans vote No, and then propagate a narrative that's it's the big bad Democrats and their handlers fault for all of our problems.

Progressives today are not like the ones in the past, the ones who actually cared about creating change and recognized the little wins in society. Today they just want to blow up the system and actively encourage anyone that's not a complete facist Republican to bring it all down with them.

It's funny that whenever Democrats control any part of government and things don't always pan out for the best, progressives and conservatives can collectively come together and spew the "bOtH sIdEs" argument. If I didn't know any better I'd think you were a conservative masquerading as someone on the left, that's just how bad it looks from a liberal perspective.

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RailRoad_Candy t1_j2c1dih wrote

In one of the most expensive cities in the US, with some of the most expensive colleges in the US, everyone is going to college to make less money and is super ant-capitslist while the feed thr beast...lol.

Meanwhile Biden's biggest political donors are Dan Crenshaw's largest donors.

The Overton Window only slides left. Its all a joke and thr hypocrisy is endless.

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Jackamalio626 t1_j2c1vdy wrote

of course it looks like that to you. You partisans have been conditioned to demonize anyone who doesn't vote the way you do.

>Progressives today are not like the ones in the past, the ones who actually cared about creating change and recognized the little wins in society. Today they just want to blow up the system and actively encourage anyone that's not a complete facist Republican to bring it all down with them.

You bet your ass we do. We just don't operate under the delusion that the system can be salvaged. The corruption is far too deep set in the system. Total dismantling is the only option to salvage anything and strive for meaningful change.

Fuck "little wins", thats the same bullshit moderates used to try and slow down the civil rights movement. Neoliberalism's trademark "better than nothing/the other thing" rhetoric doesn't fool us anymore; we're sick and tired of settling for scraps.

Sometimes you gotta stop watering the dead tree and rip it out so the soil can be pout to good use.

1

RhaenyrasUncle t1_j2a5m58 wrote

The government isn't run like a business, hence the employees of the government should not be compensated like it is a business. It is public service for a reason.

> Make no mistake about it. If you are a working man and vote R, you vote against your interest.

You have not established this to be true, yet.

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snoogins355 t1_j293yjl wrote

That's not much for what the job entails tbh. If it was private sector, I'd bet they would get over $500k

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br41nLESS t1_j2936qz wrote

I can only hope that higher salaries attract more qualified people instead of just people who are already rich and can afford to do politics. I feel like this same issue is in teaching, where salaries are so low that it pushes away talent to find higher paying jobs.

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DMala t1_j29tkr8 wrote

Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to work. The real barrier for politics is the cost of the campaign you have to run to get in. Even prior to the raise, the salaries for most high level elected positions would be pretty livable for the average MA resident.

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[deleted] t1_j2ajz6q wrote

[deleted]

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rpv123 t1_j2awkbl wrote

Same. I was a former public school teacher, served on a city board, was working at a nonprofit doing great work locally in education, and was starting to build a resume looking towards an eventual run for school board and possibly, one day, city council. Then a relative joined their local school board in 2020 and I became friends with someone who served on our school board and I knixed the plan entirely. It’s not worth death threats to my family, even if I did feel like I would have been an asset.

Then, I switched nonprofits and my coworkers got death threats because, of course, no good deed goes unpunished in this political hellscape.

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The_Big_Sad_69420 t1_j2aqkrs wrote

that's horrifying. Especially when it's someone from the grassroots who's actually going into politics to make a change for themselves & people around them

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Jer_Cough t1_j29qc0g wrote

Seems I saw this same headline only a couple years ago. Technically the headline is correct in that 2-3 years is plural but the MA state legislators don't go without an annual raise. Invariably it's well above the typical 2-3% most people get (if they get one at all). Nice to see that massive surplus going to good pockets, err use...I guess.

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BigMax t1_j2c1re1 wrote

One thing to remember… we should want those in charge of the government to be paid a competitive/market rate.

Way too much of our government is run by people who are already rich and powerful. If people aren’t paid well, then only those who are already rich, or those that will abuse the power they have to gain money, will take these jobs.

Our government is already biased way too much in favor of the rich, don’t let controlling the government be something only the rich can do.

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ipsissimus666 t1_j2aq9nh wrote

Housing and healthcare please…

Can they at least explain how they earned this raise?

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5teerPike t1_j29rhzc wrote

Makes you wonder how many of them are going to be affected by the millionaire tax.

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RhaenyrasUncle t1_j2a64j1 wrote

It only applies to earned income, so very few.

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5teerPike t1_j2a69qw wrote

One is enough for the pay raise they're giving themselves to be problematic.

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Sayoria t1_j2acrb4 wrote

It's okay. I'm just freezing my ass off at home with the heat off most of the time. Thanks, government.

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jesseMc420 t1_j29jpgx wrote

This is bullshit. Why the pay hike? I fucking hare how politicians get away with shit like this and act like they understand the average persons struggles!!!!

1

taguscove t1_j299mos wrote

Good, happy to pay them more to attract talent and stave off corruption.

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Bior37 t1_j29oozg wrote

Are people honestly believing this bit of propaganda? Or is it a meme?

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