PolicyGuy

Tuesday, November 25, 2003


Unions Make Best of Worst
Michigan state workers have endorsed an agreement negotiated between their union and the state. "Under the agreements," says the Lansing State Journal, "workers will defer two hours of pay a week, but they will avoid the prospect of a 37.5-hour work week with reduced pay." This gives Jennifer Granholm, Michigan's governor, most of the employee concessions she relied on to craft a budget with the legislature.

Says the Journal, "The Granholm administration was preparing to impose a 37.5-hour work week absent concessions, a move that would affect pay, vacation time and retirement benefits.

With banked leave time, employees continue to work 40-hour weeks but are paid for only 38 hours.

Workers bank the other hours and can take additional time off or be compensated when they leave state government with contributions into their 401(k)s."

Getting paid late is bad. Not getting paid at all is worse.

"Justice Louis D. Brandeis'?s metaphor of the states as "laboratories" for policy experiments ... had almost nothing to do with federalism and everything to do with his commitment to scientific socialism. .... To this day, it continues to inhibit a truly experimental, federalist politics." -- Michael S. Greve

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