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Public workers call on lawmakers to settle overdue contracts
Posted: 12/14/2010 2:59:24 PM
Mike Senn, president of Council #1
SPEIC/WEAC addresses the media
on December 14, calling on the governor
and legislators to settle long-overdue contracts
for state employees. Senn was joined by about a dozen
other state workers who called on lawmakers
to do the right thing by settling contracts that
include wage and insurance concessions.
Public employees: It's time for the state to act
Public employees representing about a dozen state unions gathered in Madison on Tuesday to call upon the governor and Legislature to settle their long-overdue contracts.
The contracts, which cover 2009-11, await final action by the state and address work already put in, said nurses, university employees, plumbers, educators and more. Mike Senn, president of Council #1, State Professional Education and Information Council/WEAC, told reporters and legislators it’s time for the state to act.
“I teach inmates how to turn their lives around. I don’t do it for fame; there’s no fortune either,” said Senn, a Wisconsin licensed teacher at Redgranite Correctional Institution. “I expect my students to come to me with a willingness to work toward something better. I expect them to be respectful and to see things through. I’m here today, on behalf of my colleagues, because we have the same expectations for our state. I’m here to call on our state’s leaders to stop the grandstanding and settle our contract.
“It’s the right and decent thing to do,” he added.
Senn is one of about 700 Council #1 SPEIC/WEAC members, working with youth and adults in the state’s correctional institutions, in libraries, at the Department of Public Instruction, at the State Historical Society, and elsewhere throughout Wisconsin.
The contracts being held in limbo include pay and benefit concessions, including furlough days that represent a 3 percent cut in pay. While the state employees who spoke said they are proud of the work they do, and accept their part in helping Wisconsin through tough fiscal times, they added that it doesn’t make sense to hold their contracts in limbo for the purpose of political maneuvering.
“Employees like me deliver value and quality to Wisconsin’s taxpayers,” Senn said. “Never in my career would I have expected that I’d have to stand up in the State Capitol to ask my employer – my state – to act on a simple employment contract that’s two years late in coming. Settle our contract, please.”
