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May 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Their efforts should not so much be channeled to the organization they work. More appropriately, they should be organizing and lobbying on Beacon Hill as all of their funding comes from legislative allocation. Unfortunately, both DMH and DMR are likley to be cut back on funding in the coming fiscal year.
And yes, wages of this nature are rampant throughout the agency, in mnay cases providing personal care to a fragile population.
Wages of this nature are not sustainable. Combine wages with the nature of the work and lower wages, yes the turnover is higher.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:34 am
So this won’t cost Lifelinks a penny, but they don’t want to do it just because they’re a bunch of meanies? I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess that there’s another side of the story we’re not getting here.
May 8th, 2008 at 11:46 am
Yeah Josh, it MUST be the workers’ fault, I mean, they should take their $11/hour and high turnover (which makes human service goals very hard to accomplish) and like it.
May 8th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Did I say it was the workers’ fault? Not at all.
But you’re oversimplifying the situation by pitting workers versus management (just like Karl Marx did over 150 years ago).
I work in the social services field part time and I make less than these guys. I find myself burnt out a lot as well. It really sucks sometimes. But do I blame this on my employer? Absolutely not.
I don’t know how to make the situation better, but what I do know is that its not a simple proletariet/capitalist dialectic.
May 8th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
I actually work at 55 Middlesex but I’m gonna be away monday at an interview for my dream job in San Fran B)
What I’ve heard trickling through the building here (and this is people talking to people in hallways and relayed to me fifth hand, no quotes from anyone) was basically what Kristen said — The workers unionized a couple years ago and it was probably really stupid to do so because the pool of money available for pay is still the same as it was, and now union dues are getting sucked out of it. If the SEIU doesn’t deliver in terms of more funding from Beacon Hill, which they won’t, then as far as I’m concerned they’re basically hoodwinking these people for dues money and then putting on a show with the strikes to make them feel good about it. It’s not like the managers are taking home profit that they should be paying their workers with.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
This type of problem is just another symptom of the terrible job the Bush Administration has done in “running” the country. They have managed to add over $4T to the national debt with their deficit spending/tax breaks and depreciating the value of the dollar must faster than any raises the people receive. At the same time they have signed trade agreements for the benefit of international corporations at the expense of workers on both sides of the border, and have run up trade deficits exceeding $700B for 3 years in a row.
So these people that perform an important service for stagnant wages are certainly being squeezed by the lack of purchase power of the dollars that they receive. I think the State should audit what they are getting for their money, and if justified add funds to flow into these workers for a reasonable cost-of-living increase.
Please, everyone, don’t let the discussion of national politics degrade to who has the worst religious person in his life. There are too many really important issues on which to judge the presidential candidates, and if we are not able to turn this ship around soon we will become a second tier country by the end of the third Bush term.
May 8th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
Karl Marx’s real error was misunderstanding the roles of owner and worker. Specifically, that the system can attempt incentive balance by making he worker class overlap with the owner class by virtue of stock ownership.
The real conflict problem is that in the US system, workers and management are in conflict structurally. Unions are a natural byproduct of our system. Workers have no institutional representation or leverage, so they create their own. In Germany things are much more sensible. Those with a vested interest in the company are all represented on the board: management, financial backing, and labor. Together, those with interests help navigate in recognition that shareholder value is not the only interest . In this country it would be an illegal conflict of interest. We need to get away from this 80’s idea of boiling everything down to shareholder value. We as a society like private businesses. We even like them for shareholder value. But we, as a society, also like private businesses for reasons beyond shareholder value as well. We like jobs. We like tax revenue. We like good corporate citizens. We like businesses that provide necessary services. All of these reasons are reasons that are not taken into account enough when the board debates strategy. The notion that if you take care of shareholder value the rest takes care of itself is bogus.
May 8th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
“Unions are a natural byproduct of our system” That is a true statement, but unfortunately lately I have not heard good things about union representation. I have family members that are teachers, police, and postal workers. They all say the same thing and that is that the union has done very little for them except take their dues. They pay their dues and still lose their health benefits, their sick time, and get fought with over safety issues. I keep hearing horror stories from all(5)family members and my question to them is always were is your union? They say they have no idea. A one day strike seems like it will not help the true issues.
May 9th, 2008 at 5:55 am
You’re off the mark here, wait. This has nothing to do with Bush… this is a state issue, not a federal one (10th amendment)
This pay-level problem for human service providers has been endemic throughout history.
The fact is that human services are one of the few parts of state budget that are not tied to external market forces.
Its a dangerous situation.
We need to help the DMH, DMR, and DSS cases. They are of the greatest need in society. Yet if you provide too good a service, you will attract more to the state.
Most of the state budget is tied to contracts and fixed cost agreements.
There is only about 10 or 15% of the budget that they can usually play with.. and most of it is in human services.
Of course every year they see record new tax revenues (like they did last month), yet the legislature quickly sucks up that money and dumps it into pet projects so that they can continue the call for more taxes and continue to refuse tax cuts.
(of course, this in itself is a good thing. By never completing the tax cuts they leave themselves vulnerable to not being trusted ever again with a “temporary” tax increase)
On one hand, unionizing used to help in non-government economy. But in terms of government jobs, its meaningless.
Social workers have a union contract that calls for caseload caps and such that are never met. What can they do? Walk away from the cases and make the situations worse? And you can’t sue the government.
Jay is right in that unionizing has done nothing for them but taken away more of their pay.
What needs to be done is to get the legislature to reset the pay scale for these workers.. probably tying it to an economic index. We foster parents are calling to tie foster parent pay to the regional cost of raising a child as determined by the department of agriculture indices.
The DMH and DMR people need to do something similar.
The people doing these jobs in human services are not in it for the money, but should be paid
May 9th, 2008 at 6:43 am
On a side note, having to do with the Teamsters and the Letter Carriers Union..we were in DC a couple of weeks back and saw for the first time the Teamsters and Letter Carrier Union DC office building.
Both builings are gorgeous and sit at the foot of the US Capitol.
As I stated previously and in agreement with Shawn and Jay.
I have worked in union shops before, so I have a frame of referance.
I do know that, in past years each of the human service agencies, have been given an allocation in the form of a salary reserve, designated by the legislature. Likely, this year, salary reserves are out of the question.
Money is tight all around with services being scaled back and massive reorganization all over the place (including the company I work for).
Once again, I reiterate, their union should be channelling their efforts to Beacon Hill. Organizing in downtown Lowell, doesn’t have quite the impact…in Boston.
May 10th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Shawn, the Bush connection are the costs that these people have to endure, not the funding from the State. Deficit spending amounts to an “inflation tax” on everyone, but it hurts the lowest paid among us the most. By depreciating the true value of the dollar, tangible products have price increase that are a particular burden to low income people.
US Public Debt: Source US Treasury Website
1/19/2001 = $5,727,776,738,304,64
5/8/2008 = $9,364,793,075,953,95
An increase of approximately $3,637B in 7.3 years, or an average of nearly $500B per year. If this doesn’t relate to what you have heard as the yearly deficit it is because those reports don’t include the $200B per year he has been “borrowing” from the Social Security Trust Fund.
May 11th, 2008 at 5:27 am
“He has been borrowing”
I thought there was one president, 435 members of congress and 9 Justices of the Supreme Court.
But if you seem to believe that we voted in a king.. I guess you can continue to do so.. its not hurting the rest of us.
May 11th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Yea, last time I checked it was congress that had the power of the purse.
Not that I’m a fan of Bush, but just saying…