State Budget Passed- Includes "Workload Stipend"

Our strength comes from our members! Hundreds of union members have sent thousands of letters, made hundreds more phone calls, and some six dozen folks went as far as to take days off of work to directly lobby our elected officials at Legislative Plaza in Nashville

This work prevented a vicious 5% pay cut that had been threatened.We have stopped many of the massive layoffs we were told had to be done this year and saw real steps forward for higher education due process rights. Most importantly the strength of our voice has greatly grown across the state as our union now has a presence on 8 university and college campuses with 1,100 members.

More than our victories in preventing some of the worst measures from being included, the budget passed also includes "an additional longevity payment" meant to provide a one-time workload stipend to recognize the massive increases many of us have seen in our workloads over the past few years.

This payment, which is contingent on state tax collections, will be $50 per year of service with a minimum of $150 and a maximum of $1,250 and is scheduled for the end of October for all employees with one year of service as of October 1, 2010. Some have confused this additional longevity payment thinking that it was a cut to traditional longevity. This is not the case.

We spoke out as some in the State Senate tried to completely eliminate any money for employees. The fact that any payment was passed is largely because of our members' phone calls, letters and visits to Nashville. This amount is not enough and after three years what we really need are permanent pay increases. Better proposals, such as the one put forward by Rep. Mike Turner and Sen. Jim Kyle to give all employees an equal $800 payment did not win out. We also know that with the threats of layoffs that many of our members and coworkers are facing, something is certainly better than nothing.

Our members and supporters need to understand who are our friends in Nashville, and frankly who they are not. Many in the State Senate, and in particular its leadership has been vociferous in their attempts to pin much of the blame of this recession on hard working public employees. The Speaker of the Senate, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey in ads for his campaign to become the next governor has gone as far as promising to eliminate one-third of all state government. When asked if this included public workers or merely departmental consolidations his spokesperson answered "both." At a recent candidate forum on the MTSU campus Ramsey referred to his work in the Senate, including efforts to push through more layoffs and attempts to eliminate public worker benefits as "blood on the floor."

Much is still left to learn about this budget. TBR and UT schools will now have flexibility to spend several tens of millions of dollars in Maintenance of Efforts (MOE) funds originally allocated under the Governor's budget for bonuses. We are examining these funds and will decide if specific recommendations should be made to see them spent to prevent job cuts and to supplement the one-time service payment.

We also continue to move forward as we fight against layoffs. In Memphis, UT Health Science Center has continued to go ahead with plans for reductions in force, despite having received over $30 million in federal stimulus funds and state matching dollars. All across the TBR and UT systems hundreds more employees have had their positions placed on stimulus funding that ends in 2011.

Many tasks lie ahead for us, but as the old ballad goes, "Our union makes us strong!" And together, united, we can and will improve our lives.