COULD COUNTY CUT WORK WEEK?
Monday, January 4th, 2010 -- 9:46 AM
Could Clark County turn to regular layoffs to save money?The idea was floated at a County Board meeting Wednesday night.
At the meeting, supervisors approved five union contracts and won?t have to negotiate a new deal until 2013. Some supervisors said they didn?t like giving raises to public employees when many in the private sector had lost their jobs, but the deals were better than arbitration.
Hatfield supervisor Charles Harwick said the county did have one tool at its disposal: regular layoffs.
"When you start cutting hours, you're not going to win that case. These contracts guarantee people 40 hours a week," he explained, "but the one thing you can do is decide to lay everybody off every Wednesday."
Harwick explained the weekly lay-offs would cut the wage increase in half over the next three years, and employees would have to pick up more of their health insurance bill.
"Then you have to pay unemployment. When you lay them off, they're not full-time employees, so they have to pay more of their health insurance. We have to figure out what are we going to do to slow down the increase in pay we have coming. Somehow, these (employees) have to understand what's happening in private industry," Harwick said.
The board approved five union contracts Wednesday night. The three-year deals cover around half the county?s 600 employees.
Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.