81- . Definitely; other needs take priority (856 Votes)
- . No; workers need raises (464 Votes)
- . Mixed; undecided (146 Votes)
This is not a scientific poll — results reflect only the opinions of those voting.
Big Q
Do you like the Ige administration’s message to public unions to lower pay-raise expectations?
Comments (16)
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The Cost-of-Living, goes up every year in Hawaii, and, the Hawaii Government wages, doesn’t keep up.
The middle class, in Hawaii, struggles to maintain a status quo.
The real property prices & taxes, don’t stop increasing.
They need some kind of wage increase, to break even.
Ha Ha Ha keonimay “The real property prices & taxes, don’t stop increasing.” You know why? to pay the unions!
In NY, I did contracts negotiations for my union. The total amount of money, that any government takes in from taxes & investments, is far greater, than union wages & benefits.
The private industries in Hawaii, for many years, did not pay much in money & benefits, until the unions got into the picture. The Japanese immigrants were originally paid less and even physically whipped by sugar cane & pineapple bosses. A Buddhist Bishop had to intervene in the beginning of the AJA immigration years.
Government service, set a different standard, from the private industries. It gave employees better wages, benefits, a retirement, and not that much physical abuse. People wanted to work for the government. Civil Service Exams gave everyone an equal chance to get a good job.
Now, getting a good job, is despised.
NY is a completely different beast. NY has lots of businesses so they have the luxury to spend on non-essential government services. Not many businesses here outside of tourism so don’t compare Apples and Oranges and try to make excuses for HI’s budget shortfalls. Then again, the reason HI doesn’t do well in business is due to the high taxation so businesses chose to relocate operations to tax friendly states. HI will never be like Singapore or Hong Kong unless it’s administration gets it’s act together and flips things around to lure in major employers.
Allaha, BINGO! hahahaha
IGE FOR GOVERNOR!
he just lost his precious union support
Raises = more taxes. So how can the government spend less?
Lower? I thought he said there won’t be any pay raises?
Sounds fair. Record breaking state revenues and Ige asking state workers to take a pay cut since the Hawaii CPI is over 2% higher than last year. Didn’t the state learn their lesson with teachers regarding shrewd negotiations resulting in substandard pay and benefits? The talent leaves and you can’t get anyone to fill positions. End result is the public suffers.
As a former negotiator, the one thing that has suck with me concerning negotiations, is a comment the lead negotiator made at the outset of negotiations. “We have money but not for you.” Taken in context, this is true. While there are many things deemed to be more important, employees need to make a decent wage. As we sit here, reading the paper, gas prices go up. Health insurance goes up. The price of Spam goes up. Things outside of our control. How does one keep pace? How does government pay for these increases without a tax increase? The popular model is to cut employee wages or add more hours or take away more hours. We see this everywhere and at every business. Lately, it’s been the pride of business to introduce automation. With automation comes loss of jobs. Where do we find employment for the displaced employees? Maui Sugar is a good example. Some will be retained but many are now without a job. Diversified Agriculture? Think again and see if it is being done on a scale to replace our lost sugar and pineapple industries. Most large landowners are turning the lands into subdivisions or research lands instead.
Instead of berating employees, we should be thinking about how do we provide employment. Use the thinking process/time more productively instead of being critical.
Sounds like you got some skin in the game.
No you don’t! You need to find a job that pays you a decent wage. No different than fast food workers. If your job requires minimal skills and you can be replaced by a high school dropout or even if a HS kid can easily learn and do your job then you have little to complain about. Educate yourself and move on. The rest of us are not obligated to pay you a living wage because of your choices in life.
This timing is really interesting. No raises for public employees, the Unions do little whining, in 2 years Unions get a raise, which, by the way, is election year!
If anything, they should tap the entire Hawaii government pension system (ERS) to pay for the rail and mandate furloughs for all non-essential government service workers to help meet the budget overruns.
Let’s all write to Ige so the I_D_I_O_T_S can finally bankrupt the state and in the end ALL inept and useless government white-collar chair warmers will finally be unemployed and the rest of us will no longer need to worry about additional taxes to pay for “solutions” we never asked for.
Getting rid of the dead weight will help.