The Untouchables

Ever since the budget cuts started a few months ago, one of the most irritating refrains of the local left - especially that part that works for state government - is that the "budget cuts attack everything that's good about Minnesota", or "cut at the heart of what makes this a liveable state". It's a cynical line of spin, of course; as if state workers and their working conditions and employment security, in and of themselves, are what made Minnesota great.

As the fellow pictured on the front page article on the subject in today's Pioneer Press (who is apparently being laid off by the Minnesota Historical society) put it:

“A lot of us working for the state felt blindsided. ... I always thought Minnesota was progressive, but now we’re in a bottom-line mode, and it’s harsh. It’s a step backwards, and I fundamentally don’t get it.”

In other words - Back when Minnesota made sure people like me didn't suffer in the least, the state was "progressive". Now that people like me are in the same boat as the rest of you, we're unprogressive, which is another word that means "bad".

But then you read further into the story; many state workers facing layoffs are...not facing layoffs:

Many senior employees are exercising their "bumping" rights to displace more junior workers in their agencies. Others are claiming vacant jobs in state agencies.

Of the first 300 AFSCME members who got layoff notices, about 100 "hit the streets," [AFSCME Council 6 executive director Peter] Benner said.

Of the 28 workers [State Employee Relations Commissioner Cal] Ludeman had to lay off after his agency's budget was cut by 15 percent, two-thirds found new jobs before they left the department, he said.

And when the axe finally drops, these employees have some options many of us don't have:

[Deputy Employee Relations Commish Ann] Schluter said the agency is making extra efforts to ensure that employees who may be laid off are informed about state benefits and services.

Those benefits include six months of state-paid health insurance, severance pay, unemployment insurance payments and, for some employees, early retirement options and deferred compensation. Employees facing layoffs also get directed to other jobs in state government, help in searching for private-sector jobs from the Minnesota WorkForce Centers and personal counseling from the state Employee Assistance Program.

So when you talk with an AFSCME member who may or may not be getting laid off, and he or she starts bemoaning the horror the loss of his or her job security means to society at large, ask them: what made Minnesota a great place?

A first-class university that gave business the talent it needed? Sure.

University employees that have cradle-to-grave job security and the lowest health insurance copays around? Not so much.

Good schools? Sure.

A teachers union that ensures that teacher salaries rise,across the board without regard to merit, faster than inflation? Nuh-uh.

A social safety net that keeps the unfortunate from starving? Yep.

A social safety net that subsidizes poverty indefinitely, with no accountability? No way.

Minnesotans? Yeah!

Minnesota's public employees' unions' view of public employment as sinecure? Wrong.

In March of '02, I was one of the first three whacked from a failing dotcom that is currently in the final stages of its death spiral. I was lucky enough to find a lousy job through a fleabag contracting agency, for a job that was eliminated in January after nine months, and have been scrambling to find small contract jobs while searching incessantly for permanent work, or even long-term contract jobs. Does that mean Minnesota's not a great place? In and of itself, no, although it may be a symptom of economic rot in the regional high-tech sector, a rot to which our overweening bureaucracy may have contributed - but no, I'd be a fool to assign my current troubles to some apocalyptic decaying of social morality.

And so would all you AFSCME people who, for the first time in many of your working lives, are having to learn how to search for jobs.

Bon voyage.

Posted by Mitch at June 15, 2003 05:49 PM