MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE Men’s Health Magazine just voted Portland the most patriotic city in America (um, fail), but city council was laying on the Americanism real thick this week.
The hot-button discussion was about $4 million in overtime paid to city employees who work more than eight hours on a given day, but whose hours don’t add up to over 40 a week. That’s about the size of our budget deficit, noted Commissioner Dan Saltzman, who wants to rewrite the union contract so that overtime for the city’s 1,700 union employees would only kick in after they’d worked more than 40 hours a week.
“It doesn’t make common sense for people to be paying people overtime who don’t work more than 40 hours a week,” said Saltzman.
Well, that sentiment is just gosh darn un-American, thinks Commissioner Randy Leonard.
“I thought that was a position that had been addressed back in the ’30s, when the eight-hour day became the hallmark for American workers,” Leonard hit back. “I think that’s an anathema to most working Americans.”
Oh snap! Saltzman is a sweat shop overseer! Leonard is the highly literate savior, cribbing synonyms for “bad” from a thesaurus under the table!
But that’s not all. Saltzman also hates working parents and their sick kids. Leonard clarified the specifics of the proposal with the most heart-wrenching case possible: a mom/water bureau worker stays home on Monday to take care of her sick kid, then comes in on Tuesday and has to work four extra hours to fix a water main break. So under the new plan, she would be “stripped” of that coveted time-and-a-half pay for the extra hours?
Yep.
Saltzman wasn’t going to let the old mother-with-a-sick-kid excuse be the last rhetoric laid on the dais.
“We just passed a budget that’s laying off workers. All these people, union members, could have their jobs if we dealt with this provision that paid people overtime who are working less than 40 hours a week,” said Saltzman.
Leonard and the Saltz have been acting like siblings recently, feuding over firecracker issues. Last week, Saltzman’s vote tabled a change Leonard proposed to police oversight process [“Complaining about Complaints,” Hall Monitor, July 1]. This week, it’s arguing over who loves the unions more.
See, that’s the kind of patriotism Portland is good at, Men’s Health Magazine. The kind of patriotism that involves out-liberaling one another.
Glad Leonard is all over this one – and disappointed that you incorrectly described the issue:
“The hot-button discussion was about $4 million in overtime paid to city employees who work more than eight hours on a given day, but whose hours don’t add up to over 40 a week.”
In point of fact, the issue is about workers whose hours do add up to 8 hours/day and 40 hours/week and then are asked to put in more time. To argue otherwise is to suggest that sick leave and holiday pay are gifts from a benevolent employer, that they can just be taken away when it is convenient for the employer.
A scheduled work week provides certainty and equity to both the employer and employee. Why should the employee be penalized when the employer can’t budget the time to a job in the 40 hour work week. If the employer is willing to put a premium on getting the work done NOW, then the employee deserves a premium for changing his scheduled work week to meet the employer’s new goal.
What’s that, people are getting laid off so we need to cut everyone’s salary and benefits? Why, so we can drag the lower and middle classes even lower in the wage brackets? Why are you so ready to make an argument like that for the corporations that don’t like to pay a living wage (and are upset that some city and state employees do get a living wage – corporations hate that kind of bar being set for them, cuts down on their cushy benefits package they achieve by screwing their workers over).
Sarah Mirk – fascist apologist?
Right on Finn!!!!! Sarah Mirk would’nt survive without her silver spoon.
We should telecommute 90% of the time in gov. jobs. Then the mother in this case could flex her family/wage-slave-life AND we can save money. Better for everybody.
@Mick Finn – Agreed. Any time you’re asked to stay late should be overtime, whether it brings you over 40 hours a week or not.
But – I don’t have any problem with people signing up to work “four tens.” I know my Dad greatly prefers that setup! So I’ll ask: do we have anyone scheduled to work more than 8 hours a day, less than 40 hours a week, and still pulling overtime? Reading the article, I thought that was the situation being discussed.
Reymont: I agree, voluntary four tens are great – I used to work that schedule for the U.S. Forest Service (which then meant I could sign up for weekend fire duty on Thursday night, potentially catching a long weekend doing initial attack on lightning strikes, racking up hazard pay and overtime).
And I can understand your confusion over the overtime issue in this story as the opening paragraphs were written in a way that obfuscates the issue: Saltzman doesn’t want to pay overtime for someone that has already put in 40 hours in a week if that 40 hours includes taking a sick day (8 hours), a holiday (8 hours), or taking an annual/personal accrued day (8 hours annual leave) during that 40 hour week. So, you’re out sick Monday and they tell you to come in on your regular day off (Saturday) or 2 extra hours each day during the rest of the week – that should be eight hours overtime but Saltzman just wants to pay you 48 hours straight time for the week.
Heck, under Dan’s proposal, if you’re out sick two days that week, you could end up working Saturday and Sunday and get paid straight time for 56 hours for that week. Woohoo – back to the seven day work week! What else does that do? Creates an incentive for folks to come to work sick, getting everybody else in the workplace sick, so productivity takes a hit (not to mention the questionable value of the “product” put out by someone coming in sick and medicated).