Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Unions turn on Rendell

Mention the words "hiring freeze" or "layoffs" to union members and they develop a heightened sense of fiscal responsibility.

Faced with the prospect of losing public sector jobs if the state's fiscal crisis deepens, the union representing 20,000 Pennsylvania human services employees has come up with suggestions to save taxpayers millions of dollars.

The union is upset that Gov. Ed Rendell won't sit down and listen to its ideas. Instead Rendell has imposed a hiring freeze on most state jobs.

The quickest way to save money, argues SEIU Local 668, is to end private contracts.

"It is time for this administration to open the books and disclose the huge amounts of taxpayer money being wasted on private contractors," said union president Kathy Jellison. "Our members can do this work more efficiently -- and at a lower cost to the taxpayers. There is no justification for these private contracts, when our members can do a better job and have more experience at providing the same services. We believe this is why vital human services have not been fully funded in Pennsylvania."

I'm confused. Isn't the state turning to private contractors to save money?

It sounds like the union workers are turning on the hand that has fed them for the past six years.

Read the union's full press release at the link below:

State Human Services Union Identifies Ways to Save Millions of Tax Dollars

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm confused. Isn't the state turning to private contractors to save money?

That is the theory, but the reality is 85% of contractors at the state are simply billable bodies. Big contracts like DPW are all bloated and the amount of waste is beyond words. Plus the numbers are always off, the 300 million is just the tip of the iceberg. The state is owned by contracting firms, literally owned.

It sounds like the union workers are turning on the hand that has fed them for the past six years.

True, they are turning on the folks that did their work for them, but they only fed the union workers scraps from their table that contained a smorgasbord.

One real audit of contractor spending, in other words not by the AG, would fix the budget.

January 8, 2009 at 3:22 PM 

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