DES MOINES – AFSCME Iowa Council 61 issued the following statement regarding the release of a “Benefits Review” by the Branstad Administration:
“This report is an attempt to mislead Iowans about public employee compensation. The fact is that a study by the non-partisan Iowa Policy Project found that even when accounting for benefits such as health insurance, public employees in Iowa receive six to eight percent less total compensation than their private sector counterparts with similar levels of education. Time and time again, AFSCME members have chosen to accept lower wages at the bargaining table in order to preserve health benefits. We have also worked with the state to encourage state employees to enroll in managed care plans that cost the state less money than other current plans that require a 15% payment,” said AFSCME Iowa Council 61 President Danny Homan.
“The Branstad Administration’s misleading and unjustified attacks on public employees are an attempt to distract Iowans from Terry Branstad’s record of failure as a Governor. Since Terry Branstad took office, 15,000 less Iowans have jobs and the Governor has only achieved 0.4 % of his family income goal,” added Homan.
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You can read the executive summary of the report here.
You can read the entire report, here.
The Des Moines Register reported today that “The report – released just weeks before negotiations with state unions begin – is the first state benefits review of its kind. It calls for state employees to pay 20 percent health care premiums, the elimination of indemnity plans and increased deductibles. Taken altogether, the plans would save the state $116,260,000, mostly in employee contributions and a reduction in benefits.”
15 thoughts on “Labor group responds to state report on public employee benefits on eve of negotiations”
Must be like MC garbage report – We thought it was about how much money the city would save by privatizing the garbage route. Instead it was turned into a perhousehold saving per month. So at 5000 households at 9.60 per month income you can run that department on approx. 600 thousand per year. total cost. Excuse me while I choke awhile. Show us the figures – We’d say the taxpayers are digging up the other 2to3 million. Show us the bottom line figures and maybe we’ll quit laughing – We doubt it.
My thought has always been that unions in small private businesses should have to participate in business losses as well as the profits. Unions employees should have to contribute to the company in the bad years. That way they can find out what it’s like to own a business and try to eek by half the time. Not all businesses make great profits and you can’t count on business being the same every year in this economy.
I agree all businesses should be employee owned, not just union shops. Everyone would work harder to make sure the company succeeds and all would prosper instead of just the rich.
I hope they break the union. Let the state workers see what the real workforce has to live with.
why is it that non-union workers want to drag down union jobs to their level instead of striving to reach up to the level of union jobs. I think jealousy and envy come into play. If you are unhappy with your pay and benifits start a campaign to organize a union at your place of employment or look for a union job.
Consevatives bitch and moan if you say anything bad about Rommney being rich you are just jealous and bring up class envy. Regular workers who negotiated a contract and live up to that contract are losers who don’t deserve anything and are ruining the country. America is the land of hypocrites.
the dog catcher in Costa Mesa CA makes 116,000 a year. Of 647 city workers 319 cost taxpayers over 100K. 2 firemen make over 325K
http://38.106.5.76/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=769
They are out sourcing several things and are on track to save 22 million over 5 years
http://www.costamesaca.gov/index.aspx?page=1312
The unions priced them selves out of a job
good thing we don’t live in Costa Mesa CA!!! Cost of living and some very poor negotiaters on the cities behalf sound like the problem there to me.
To the people who cry out to privatize, do you really think that once they do that your taxes are going to decrease? In cities and states that have gone private it as been proven that the level of service is less and the taxes didn’t go down. Within 3-4 years the people realized that they were getting a better service with public workers. You get what you pay for. Besides, this article clearly shows that the public workers receive less than the private sector.
Public employee demorat unions are destroying this country. Cannot afford them – privatize.
Until there is one retirement program and one medical program that everyone has to belong to there will be no fairness in this country. I do not think taxpayers should be required to pay for government employees retirements or medical programs. As most others do they should and pay their own fair way!
So bargaining for their own healthcare isn’t fair? It’s a two way street when you sit down at that table for negotiations… and if you don’t know anything about the process you might keep your cry hole shut about it.
Time for public union employees to start paying for their healthcare as private union employees do and non-union employees have for years…it happened in WI. and its coming to Iowa…about time
I was a teamster for more than 34 years and I never paid a single cent for my health care. It is still that way at the company I retired from 3 years ago. So all private sector union employee’s don’t pay for their heath care. You must remember that in many instances union employees have for years negotiated a smaller wage increase in order to put more money into their benefit package.
This proves that the Republicans will steal from the working middle class and hand out more benifits to those who do not need it…… Jim