Would employees prefer layoffs?

Gov. Pat Quinn suggested state employees take four unpaid furlough days to help with the budget shortfall. The immediate response from the spokeperson for AFSCME 31 indicated if they are forced to take the days off they will go to court. Since this contract was just approved in 2008, they received a 15.2 percent increase over four years for an average of 3.8 percent or $1,900 plus benefits. This contract covered 37,000 employees. I don't know how many employees are not covered by this contract.

Employees of the public/private sector might be lucky if they get 3 percent a year. These increases are based on performance not some contract. Public and private companies are laying off people in numbers not heard of in years and yet government employees when faced with cutbacks cry not fair. Let's see if my math is correct, there are 260 working days per years, state employees get 12 paid holidays, bringing the total number of work days to 248, less 4 more days is 244. This reduces their pay by about 1.6% a year or $800 based on a salary of $50,000 per year.

Or let's reduce the number of holidays the state employees get off, to bring them more in line with the public/private sector on paid holidays. That way we get an extra four days work out of them Or maybe Governor Quinn should lay off 1.6 percent or 555 of the employees of the State. This would save the state $38.8 million based on a salary of $50,000 plus benefits. This is more that the $29.6 million saved if they took the days off without pay. Then the employees can ask their AFSCME representative why me?

Isn't it time that the state employees also start sacrificing to try and get the budget in line?

Paul Gasiorowski

Palatine