Unions: Equal Work for Less Pay

[McDuck]

Auto Union Embraces Two-Tier Wages

 

[McDuck]

Grocery Union Negotiators Accept Two-Tier Pay Scale, Health Cost

 

[James48843]

Auto Union Embraces Two-Tier Wages

That was the round of concessions in 2007 that Management said was necessary in order to ensure that Chrysler, Ford and GM would survive and thrive into the future.

That was 2007.

Interesting how that worked out, isn't it?

 

[McDuck]

That was the round of concessions in 2007 that Management said was necessary in order to ensure that Chrysler, Ford and GM would survive and thrive into the future.

That was 2007.

Interesting how that worked out, isn't it?

Yeah, I won't like being a new hire doing the same job as a old guy and him making twice as much and him getting better benefits. Union means "one", i.e., everybody the same. (Not how it's being done by the current union fat-cat bosses).

Hell, the non-union auto workers make about $2/hours more than the old timer union auto worker. And they don't have to pay union deductions to the fat cats. What's up with that? (sorry I might should have posted that question in the new thread).

 

[James48843]

Yeah, I won't like being a new hire doing the same job as a old guy and him making twice as much and him getting better benefits. Union means "one", i.e., everybody the same. (Not how it's being done by the current union fat-cat bosses).

Same thing happened in the FAA with the new "Core Comp" pay plan. Replaced the GS system with a a system that pays new hires 25% less that the GS system did.

I can tell you that it promptly put the FAA at the bottom of the "Great Places to Work For" survey. We're now 214th out of 216th.

And it wasn't the Unions who proposed it- it was the last Administration who slammed it onto the workers, despite their opposition. FAA hired a Union buster by the name of Joe Minace to be their new Labor Relations director in 2003, --a former Union Dockworker buster from the west coast, to come in and destroy the Unions at FAA. He slammed the new pay system and concessions down the throats of a lot of people.

It wasn't pretty.

 

[OBGibby]

Actually, FAA's core compensation transition started in early 2000, during the last year of the Clinton administration. As much fun as it is for some folks to lay the blame of everything they don't like or agree with at the feet of George Bush's administration, the facts speak for themselves.

 

[James48843]

Actually, FAA's core compensation transition started in early 2000, during the last year of the Clinton administration. As much fun as it is for some folks to lay the blame of everything they don't like or agree with at the feet of George Bush's administration, the facts speak for themselves.

But it was during the Bush years that Core Comp was shoved down the throats of employees who wanted to have safeguards to ensure that it was administered fairly. NATCA Engineers of AIR brach were slammed into Core, against their wishes, in July of 2005. Then, the NATCA Controller Workforce was slammed into Core, against their wishes, on Labor Day of 2006. Some Labor Day present for workers.

It's one thing to adopt a pay system if the workers vote to accept it. It is quite a different thing to force it on them involuntarily.

Do you agree with that?

 

[James48843]

Here is an example of the result of involuntary slamming of employees into a pay situation they did not approve of, or vote for. Employee moral goes down. In fact, it sets up a situation where the rift between those who do the work (labor) and those who direct the work (Management) grows into a large divide. Certainly not the best situation.

Take a look at today's "Potomac Current and Undertow" story, on the FAA manager, who offers to let an employee transfer, but only if the Union provides a grill for the cookout the manager uses stolen money to hold:

http://currentandundertow.blogspot.com/

Only one of multiple blogs of FAA employees who hold Agency Management in high esteem, and report the goings on.

Other great blogs to follow:
http://www.faafollies.com/
http://jurassicbark.blogspot.com/
http://themainbang.typepad.com/blog/
http://gettheflick.blogspot.com/index.html

How many other agencies do you know if, that have a fleet of employees blogging the foibles of the management of their agencies?

 

[OBGibby]

Do you agree with that?

What I certainly don't agree with is the fact that some federal employees are allowed to unionize and negotiate contracts or agreements.

The last time I checked Uncle Sam isn't in the habit of conducting the people's business through democratic means. Wow, FAA employee's didn't "vote" for a pay system change, so it must be bad, and awful, and all things un-American. They didn't "vote" for the change, so somehow they've been thrown under the bus, and this is unfair...

I didn't "vote" to allow lazy, incompetent, sack of beans colleagues we've all known throughout our careers to get the same raise I got every year in the GS system, even though I busted my ass doing good work, time and again. Somehow that little inconvenient aspect of the GS system never caught the attention of the union folks during the previous 70 years of the GS system. Funny how we never saw the unions organizing and protesting that. (And before you ask, Yes - I am aware that the GS system has mechanisms in place to reward high performers and penalize and weed out the slackers. Too bad it is so infrequently used.)

I didn't "vote" to only get a X.X% pay raise this year, so that must be unfair as well. I didn't "vote" to see my health care premiums go up, so that must be unfair. I didn't "vote" for my first line supervisor who got promoted ahead of more qualified and competent competitors, so that also must be unfair. I didn't "vote", well you get the picture. Sorry for the rant, but two things that have been really irritating me of late are unions and federal employees bellying aching about pay and benefits. Do we have the absolute best benefits and pay? Probably not. But they're pretty good in my estimation, and good be a whole lot worse. Sometimes we forget just how good we have it...

Core compensation, or pay banding, or broad banding, or whatever you want to call it, has been introduced, expanded, tweaked and disavowed, bad-mouthed, praised, and all things in between, since at least 1978. All of the aforementioned by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and both Republican and Democratic controlled Congresses.

My personal opinion of pay banding (and I have worked under pay banding), is that I like it in theory. Unfortunately, it's been my experience that a great many federal managers could not, and would not, fully utilize the mechanisms already in place under the GS system to properly manager their folks. Additionally, in my line of work (criminal investigations), the implied "every man for himself" aspect of pay banding is counterproductive, and potentially dangerous. If the managers I spoke of above couldn't fully exploit the GS system, I have no confidence that those same managers would be able to navigate and administer pay banding appropriately, considering that the administrative burdens probably increase ten-fold. So, in the real world I'd like to see pay banding go the way of dinosaurs and I'd like to see managers using all appropriate parts of the GS system to get the best out of their employees and to trim excess fat from the rolls.

From what I've seen it seems like the smaller agencies, where the vast majority of the employees basically do the same types of jobs, have found pay banding to be good. I'm thinking of some of the intelligence agencies in particular.

 

[OBGibby]

How many other agencies do you know if, that have a fleet of employees blogging the foibles of the management of their agencies?

And this is somehow all attributable to the fact that the FAA is using core compensation?

 

[XL-entLady]

I have an aunt who retired from the FAA. She is my role model and is the reason I joined federal service. She went from FAA clerical help (because that's all women were good for in those days) to working her way into a position where she shattered the glass ceiling.

Then came the early 2000's. When all the rule changes started to hit, it was decided that she was labor in some issues and management in other issues, and always to the detriment of her career. Her union became part of the problem rather than part of the answer. When she had finally had enough and took early retirement, the FAA tried to get her to come back to do some mentoring. She told them no (...and to sit on it and rotate....)

The FAA lost a great employee because the organization ignored the fact that you can't treat people like machines and then expect them to perform like champions.

Lady

 

[James48843]

...Additionally, in my line of work (criminal investigations), the implied "every man for himself" aspect of pay banding is counterproductive, and potentially dangerous.... .

In an organization where SAFETY is the prime responsibility (FAA Aviation Safety Inspectors, Controllers, Aircraft Design Engineers, etc) , the "every man for himself" (or woman for herself) is even more so counter-productive and dangerous. One of the things the FAA was known for before this was the teamwork of employees. That's been shot to heck. Now there is no teamwork anymore- only "us" and "them".

Do I blame core-comp for all the employee blogging now? No, not entirely. I blame the Management attitude of "if you don't like this job, then take a hike, we'll make it miserable for you until you quit" attitude that included shoving employees into a pay system that they had bone-fide problems accepting. It's not the pay system- it's how the pay system adversely affects the safety core values of the people who are trying to do their jobs.

When you mess with the core values like the safety of the public, you can expect to get pushback from the men and women who actually do the work.

 

[CountryBoy]

What I certainly don't agree with is the fact that some federal employees are allowed to unionize and negotiate contracts or agreements.

The last time I checked Uncle Sam isn't in the habit of conducting the people's business through democratic means. Wow, FAA employee's didn't "vote" for a pay system change, so it must be bad, and awful, and all things un-American. They didn't "vote" for the change, so somehow they've been thrown under the bus, and this is unfair...

I didn't "vote" to allow lazy, incompetent, sack of beans colleagues we've all known throughout our careers to get the same raise I got every year in the GS system, even though I busted my ass doing good work, time and again. Somehow that little inconvenient aspect of the GS system never caught the attention of the union folks during the previous 70 years of the GS system. Funny how we never saw the unions organizing and protesting that. (And before you ask, Yes - I am aware that the GS system has mechanisms in place to reward high performers and penalize and weed out the slackers. Too bad it is so infrequently used.)

I didn't "vote" to only get a X.X% pay raise this year, so that must be unfair as well. I didn't "vote" to see my health care premiums go up, so that must be unfair. I didn't "vote" for my first line supervisor who got promoted ahead of more qualified and competent competitors, so that also must be unfair. I didn't "vote", well you get the picture. Sorry for the rant, but two things that have been really irritating me of late are unions and federal employees bellying aching about pay and benefits. Do we have the absolute best benefits and pay? Probably not. But they're pretty good in my estimation, and good be a whole lot worse. Sometimes we forget just how good we have it...

Core compensation, or pay banding, or broad banding, or whatever you want to call it, has been introduced, expanded, tweaked and disavowed, bad-mouthed, praised, and all things in between, since at least 1978. All of the aforementioned by both Republican and Democratic administrations, and both Republican and Democratic controlled Congresses.

My personal opinion of pay banding (and I have worked under pay banding), is that I like it in theory. Unfortunately, it's been my experience that a great many federal managers could not, and would not, fully utilize the mechanisms already in place under the GS system to properly manager their folks. Additionally, in my line of work (criminal investigations), the implied "every man for himself" aspect of pay banding is counterproductive, and potentially dangerous. If the managers I spoke of above couldn't fully exploit the GS system, I have no confidence that those same managers would be able to navigate and administer pay banding appropriately, considering that the administrative burdens probably increase ten-fold. So, in the real world I'd like to see pay banding go the way of dinosaurs and I'd like to see managers using all appropriate parts of the GS system to get the best out of their employees and to trim excess fat from the rolls.

From what I've seen it seems like the smaller agencies, where the vast majority of the employees basically do the same types of jobs, have found pay banding to be good. I'm thinking of some of the intelligence agencies in particular.

Very well said OB.

CB

 

[OBGibby]

I blame the Management attitude of "if you don't like this job, then take a hike, we'll make it miserable for you until you quit" attitude...

I think this particular point really brings up a much larger issue, in my mind at least. And that is, the federal government (and I'm obviously generalizing here) does a horrible job of identifying, mentoring, and developing the next generation of their leaders. And then once that next generation of leaders is inducted into management, even less attention is paid to developing managerial and leadership traits.

To me this is the single biggest problem facing federal employee ranks. You put garbage in, you're going to get garbage out. As it relates to pay banding issues, putting aside the argument about the pros and cons of pay banding, management that actually LEADS has more of an impact in ensuring that fairness is administered throughout the process. When employees have poor leadership, everything will go downhill. It certainly does not help to have leaders that a) openly disparage pay banding to their subordinates, b) either refuse to embrace and understand pay banding, or c) can't understand how to administer pay banding. Those three things will destroy morale and will eventually destroy the agency from within.