Sirs:

I thought it was the city of jerks.

Am I not right?

Jacomus

Oops. Confused as to which alias I'm using today.

Murph

WTF? In the real world, if you don't work 40 hours in a week you get no overtime. I can understand having to take time off for family emergencies, but NO overtime if you don't work more than 40 in that week.

The article doesn't do a good job of explaining the issue. Let's say you're schedule for Monday through Friday. On Wednesday, you've come down with something, and you have to use one of your accumulated sick leave days to stay home from work. You come back to work on Thursday and Friday.

Then, there's an overtime opportunity posted for Saturday. If you work on Saturday, do you get overtime or straight-time. Most people, public or private sector, would get overtime. The City seems to want it to be either straight time or have the employee work for free.

Actually Polis I think most people in the private sector, if they get sick on wednesday, they stay home with no sick pay (unless thay work for a larger company). and they don't go to work on saturday unless the business is open, or someone wants to give up a shift.
overtime is for WORKING more than a 40 hour week. if eight of those hours are spent playing Wii and nursing a flu- well that isn't really working is it?

The clue's in the word "Overtime". If it's not over your regular time, you don't get paid overtime. Put this to a public vote and even here in union-friendly Portland, the union would be told to shove it where the sun don't shine.

I've was raised to support both unions and public employees but a dozen years in Oregon has taught me mostly that the combination of the two is an unholy and toxic alliance. The public employee unions in Oregon seem hellbent on getting theirs regardless of whether it causes widespread job loss bankrupts the state and its cities. The myth that public workers earn less than their private sector counterparts needs to die once and for all.

@agnostrum, FYI, AFSCME Local 88 which represents Multnomah County employee's took a voluntary wage freeze last year to retain over 75 employees. My bothers and sisters in the union are just looking out for the middle-class family and for each other. We aren't "hellbent on getting ours" we are hoping to bring up the entire community to make things better for all families.
I just want to educate people that public employees actually cost less to the tax payer than they did in the 1970's. We just never hear that side of the story in the mainstream media.
In Solidarity.

Wage hour says overtime is more that 40 hours per week. What this union bargaining posture will do is cause the government to sell essential services to the private sector (non-union) then buy them back. This is what has been taught in schools of government for years. This is how Blackwater grew.