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Raises for the big guys while little guys suffer

Here are the facts so far relating to county employee pay raises: Mayor will get 19 percent, council members will get 15 percent, and directors and deputy directors will also get around 15 percent starting July 1 – all very nice.

Considering that county employees’ last raises across the board were in October 2008, those are nice chunks of change after almost five years.

Now here comes the troubling part: Clerical staff members may soon ratify their 4 percent pay raises – not very nice. Quite the disparity, don’t you think?

And the employer has offered the same 4 percent pay increase to me and my fellow employees as well. Where is the equity?

Luckily this offer was turned down, but I don’t see our next employer offer being much better, and now our raises could be held in binding arbitration until next fiscal year.

This would mean that any raises decided for me and my fellow employees may not occur until it is funded in July 2014, although there may be a retro pay stipulation.

Might as well tack on another year of no raises for the little guy. I mean, we don’t need the additional income for our families now do we?

Did I mention that our health premiums have risen quite substantially over the past five years of cuts and no raises?

Let’s be fair about this, employer – 15 percent raises for all or 4 percent for all.

Joe Prutch

Wailuku

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