Vindicator ignores sacrifices public employees have made

Vindicator ignores sacrifices public employees have made

EDITOR:

Throughout the recent months, The Vindicator regularly has bashed public employees, alleging that their benefits are excessive and demanding that they make sacrifices. This anti-public campaign is based on misinformation and ultimately is harmful to this valley and its residents.

The Vindicator ignores sacrifices public employees have made. At the Mahoning County Child Support Enforcement Agency, for example, front-line employees months ago accepted an unpaid day every pay period (a 10 percent reduction in pay) to save their co-workers from layoffs. Their immediate supervisors, also unionized, did suffer several layoffs. (By contrast, management employees at this agency and most higher levels of county government have faced neither pay cuts nor layoffs-so much for shared sacrifice.) Unionized maintenance employees at the courthouse and clerk of courts employees also have accepted the unpaid day every pay period. Employees have been laid off at the Youngstown school board, the county recorder’s office, Boardman Township, and from cities throughout the region. These cuts come even though the Bush economy meltdown greatly has increased the demand for the services these employees provide.

The Vindicator also forgets that public employees are taxpayers too, as well as customers of businesses in this Valley. Those who have lost 10 percent of their pay have less to spend at private sector businesses. Those who have lost their jobs have nothing to spend. A situation which undermines the economy of this whole region.

Finally, public employee benefits are not excessive. Every American deserves benefits like health care, sick leave to care for oneself and one’s family, and a decent pension upon retirement. The crime is not that public employees have these basic benefits, but rather that so many private sector employers refuse to provide (or have eliminated) them. By encouraging employers to race to the bottom by cutting benefits, The Vindicator helps impoverish all residents of this Valley.

JOHN J. FILAK

Youngstown

X The writer is regional director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Ohio Council 8.