About Those Federal Pay Freezes...

From Talking Points Memo:

Everyone Hates Obama's Pay Freeze Plan... Except Republicans

The early reviews of President Obama's plan to freeze federal worker pay are in -- and it gets a resounding "F" from just about everybody outside of GOP leadership.

Michael Linden, a budget expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, said the plan is small potatoes that risks driving away valuable civil servants with little budgetary upside.

"Bluntly doing it this way, we risk cutting off our nose to spite our face," Linden said in a phone interview. "We risk not hiring good people, we risk not giving a raise to people who deserve a raise, and we miss not cutting the pay of those who deserve a pay cut."

Linden recalled similarities between the plan Obama announced today and his previous call at an earlier political low point for a discretionary spending freeze.

"Both are sort of blunt instruments for reducing the deficit that don't reduce the deficit very much," Linden said. "The pay freeze is actually much smaller than the discretionary spending freeze," in budget terms.

If enacted, the proposal will disproportionately impact middle-income earners.
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Honestly, it's hard for me to get very worked up over them.

In theory, of course, they are bad idea for a lot of reasons:

• The amount of dough you save is minuscule relative to the deficit you are trying to pay down.


• Using it as a bargaining chip makes sense only if you get something in return.


• Asking middle class workers -- which most federal employees emphatically are -- to take one for the team while at the same time Wall Street banksters are back to doing wheelbarrows of coke paid for with the Bailout Bonuses which those same middle class workers are underwriting with their tax dollars is, well, I don't have a font big enough to spell out "Amazingly Stupid" and "Gratuitously Insulting" large enough to do it justice.


• Every time you offhandedly screw over government workers to make some trivial political point, you reinforce the ugly wingnut meme that government workers are lazy, featherbedding, SEIU thugs so fuck 'em!


• Solidarity!
  

Yeah, I get it.

However that is theory.

In practice, most government workers I know do not work for the Fed.

They work for other units of government -- the state, the city, the county, school systems, one transit authority or another, etc. -- all of which (like the Fed) have large deficits relative to their annual budgets.

They work very hard.

And for about the last three years, the various units of government for which they work have been a whiplashing blizzard of layoffs:

Chicago Community College Budget Calls for Hundreds of Layoffs
Alex Keefe Jul. 29, 2010

Hundreds of non-teaching staff members could be laid off under the new budget proposal for Chicago's community college system.

Next year's budget for City Colleges of Chicago could fund 311 fewer positions, some through attrition.

But that could include 225 non-teacher layoffs.

Chancellor Cheryl Hyman they would affect administrators, as the district tries to consolidate some workers from its seven colleges.

And...

New Chicago Public Schools Budget: Layoffs, Furlough Days, And Larger Class Sizes To Make Ends Meet

Chicago Sun-Times | Fran Spielman | 04/16/09

About 1,200 city school workers will receive layoff notices this week, and principals will begin sharing the budget pain via pay freezes and six furlough days, as Chicago Public Schools officials move today to plug their remaining $370 million deficit.

pay freezes...

"As outlined in the preliminary budget, the City will continue to generate $70 million in savings next year through union agreements and the extension of unpaid holidays and furloughs for non-union employees. Additionally, non-union employees will not receive a cost-of-living increase in 2010 for a savings of $6 million."

hiring freezes...

"Among many steps to balance the budget Daley said the City will...continue the freeze on non-safety hiring, which has been in effect since 2008, saving an estimated $20 million in 2011."

benefit cuts and unpaid furlough days.

Daley plans new round of furlough days, wage freeze
October 19, 2009

In an effort to save money next year, Mayor Richard Daley today said he will order non-union employees to take off 24 days without pay next year and won't give them cost-of-living raises, saving $26 million.

Also, to make up for these massive loses in productive capacity, the workloads of those who survive the periodic decimations have effectively doubled. No one will say it out loud of course, and the City, at least, has very strict public policies about working on furlough days, but everyone knows (wink/wink) what is expected of them, and everyone knows what the consequences are if the ever-rising tide of work does not get done to the Hall's satisfaction.

In better times, budget gnomes can play lots of complex games with various funding sources and accounting tricks to meet legal requirements while insulating management from taking any real hits by make positions appear and disappear like virtual particles. But these are not better time, and at least at the City, everyone from Fifth Floor down to the shoeshine guys in the lobby knows the situation is Very Fucking Bad -- worse than it has ever been -- and is only going to go sharply downhill from here.

(Except of course if you are in The Club --

From the Sun-Times:

Connected city worker spared in merger, layoffs
Never knew she had clout, Special Events director says

October 22, 2010

BY FRAN SPIELMAN City Hall Reporter

Clout apparently still counts in City Hall jobs -- despite Mayor Daley's promise to implement a personnel system free of politics in the wake of a hiring scandal that cost taxpayers $12 million to compensate victims of the city's rigged hiring system.

The wife of a former Democratic ward boss -- who also happens to be the daughter-in-law of a former alderman -- has survived a departmental merger that will eliminate 13 jobs and force nine layoffs.

Maureen Volini was a $73,752 administrative services officer for the Mayor's Office of Special Events.

Now that Daley's final budget is merging Special Events with the Department of Cultural Affairs, Volini has avoided the ax with a transfer to the Department of Procurement Services.
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-- in which case you are still fucking golden.)

All of which is to say that, while I get that freezing federal salaries sucks, if you're expecting a lot of tears of betrayal to be shed over it, I suggest you take it up with some sleep-deprived, stress-sickened city worker who is in their third year of having their financial security cut out from underneath them...while doing twice the work they were hired to do...for a boss who has made it clear that more layoffs are on the way...and consider themselves one of the lucky ones.