Non-unionized employees want to know: Where are our raises?

Now that the bulk of unionized state employees know what is in store for their compensation package for the next year, non-unionized workers want to know what their deal will be.

Apparently, they will have to wait for word on that. Gov. Tom Wolf hasn't made a decision yet whether a raise of any sort is in their future, according to Dan Egan, a spokesman for the governor's Office of Administration.

The 13,000-plus non-unionized employees are coming off a year where many of them saw their pay rise by 6.5 percent.

That was a decision made by the former Gov. Tom Corbett administration to attempt to address the 12.75 percent pay disparity created from a three-year pay freeze for non-unionized employees that occurred during former Gov. Ed Rendell's administration. That freeze was imposed to help deal with some budgetary challenges the state was facing at the time.

"The administration understands the impact that the 2008-2011 pay freeze had on non-union employees, and there is no desire to exacerbate any inequities that may have occurred," Egan said. "However, at this time no final decision has been made with respect to what increase may be provided to non-union employees in FY15-16."

The 41,000 employees represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13 and 1,400 liquor store clerks represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers recently ratified a one-year contract extension.

The one-year pact provides no base pay increase, but does grant a 2.25 percent step increase – or lump sum payment to those at the top of seniority scale – on Jan. 1. It also carries forward their health benefits package for another year without changes.

The cost of those contract extensions is estimated at about $23 million, according to the Wolf Administration.

Egan declined to say how much the equivalent of a step increase given to the 13,000 non-unionized workers would cost the state. However, last year, he shared that a 2.25 percent increase granted to these employees last March carried a cost of $8.7 million.

He also pointed out at the time that even with that pay bump, it left about a quarter of non-unionized employees making less than the unionized people they supervised.

Egan said that not only was bad for employee morale, it also made it difficult for state agencies to recruit and retain people for the non-represented positions in state government.

Source: Penn Live