Aug
16

Roundtable Poll Question – CSEA contract?

Written by: Sarah LaDuke    Filed under: Poll Question, The Roundtable     Comments: 1    Tags

Do you think the Civil Service Employees Association should have signed the contract agreement with New York State?

Sarah LaDuke

Sarah LaDuke

Sarah grew up in Saranac Lake, NY where she worked part time at Pendragon Theatre all through high school and college. She graduated from SUNY Albany in 2006 with a BA in English and started at WAMC a few weeks later as a part-time board-op in the control room. Through a series of offered and seized opportunities she is now the producer of The Roundtable.

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1 Comment to “Roundtable Poll Question – CSEA contract?”

  • Cristina Dyer August 16, 2011 at 12:18 pm

    Absolutely. And PEF should too. My spouse is a PEF member who received a lay-off notice. We’re now in the reprieve period while they initiate their vote. I’ve heard and read all the comments against these contracts and honestly, as someone who has been a union supporter my entire life, I’ve been shocked that saving people from being put out of work in a horrible economy is not the number 1 priority. Instead I read and hear, “Oh, they’re young, they’ll bounce back, lucky them they can leave horrible NYS”

    My spouse isn’t young; just recently hired in his title (three years). And losing the job isn’t just the loss of income for him/us, it’s the loss of a career in a specialized field that he loves, one that it took him a long time to break into. He is passionate about what he does and about providing a public service to the people of this state. And we love NY. We don’t want to leave the state; we want to stay here, raise our child here, let her continue to be with her friends and near family. It would mean selling our home, if we could in our community where many have sat vacant and unsold for years, finding new employment for both of us – more difficult for older workers, the expense of relocating, starting our child over in new schools when she is doing well where she is, relocation for my elderly parent who lives with us.

    I work for a not-for-profit , making significantly less than most PEF employees. I understand what the no voters don’t want to give up:
    Raises – haven’t one of those in five years
    Higher insurance premiums and co-pays – Our insurance is through my employment, not NYS and yes, check, have had to budget for all those the past few years
    Furloughs – have faced the threat of those for the past few years and budgeted accordingly
    Less generous pension – check again, that happened at my place of employment when the economic downturn started.

    Noe of that thrills me, but I am grateful to have my job and grateful that none of my co-workers have lost theirs. I would willingly do with less for that reason.

    If the PEF contract goes down, at some point we will likely move out of NYS, despite all the reasons we don’t want to. We will, because, as my spouse says, “Why should we continue to live here and pay for the jobs and pensions of the people who put me out of work?”