On Friday, July 24th, many employees of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania will receive only a small portion of their regular paycheck.
Excerpt from Governor Rendell’s letter to the Mortgage Bankers Association of Pennsylvania:
“The Commonwealth pays employees in arrears in two payroll groups, each being paid on alternate Fridays. For employees paid on Friday, July 17, they will be paid for the seven days they worked before June 30; they will not be paid for the three days worked after June 30. For employees paid on Friday, July 24, they will be paid for the two days they worked before June 30; they will not be paid for the eight days worked after June 30. If an impasse continues past July 24, employees will not receive any pay on their regularly scheduled pay days until a budget is signed. Employees will be paid in full for any missed pay as quickly as possible once a budget is signed.”
If no budget is passed, and no stop-gap measure is approved to pay Commonwealth employees, according to the Fair Labor Standards Act, Governor Rendell will be breaking the law. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires employees to be paid at least the legal minimum wage on time.
If at least the minimum wage is not paid on time, then affected Commonwealth employees will be eligible to file with the U.S. Department of Labor for back pay. Remedies available include:
(1) The Wage and Hour Division may supervise payment of back wages.
(2) The Secretary of Labor may bring suit for back wages and an equal amount as liquidated damages.
(3) An employee may file a private suit for back pay and an equal amount as liquidated damages, plus attorney’s fees and court costs.
(4) The Secretary of Labor may obtain an injunction to restrain any person from violating the FLSA, including the unlawful withholding of proper minimum wage and overtime pay.
Source: U.S Department of Labor
What does this mean for Pennsylvania?
If every Commonwealth employee becomes eligible for back pay, plus an equal amount in liquidated damages, plus attorney fees and court costs, Pennsylvania could be facing billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses, because Governor Rendell and his colleagues have once again miserably failed to perform their duties. Instead, they grandstand, stall, and play politics as usual, while sinking Pennsylvania into the abyss of financial ruin.
A key point in this dilemma is a proposed tax increase, insisted on by Governor Rendell, and supported by his Democratic allies in the Pa General Assembly. This tax increase would largely fund Governor Rendell’s pet projects. So, during the worst economic downturn is recent history, Governor Rendell thinks you should give more of your money to the government!
However, should thousands of Commonwealth employees file for relief under the Fair Labor Standards Act, as they have a right to do, where will all that tax money go? That’s right, it will go to pay the liquidated damages, court costs, and attorneys fees.
On Friday, July 17, the Democrat-led Pa House of Representatives passed a budget, on a party-line vote. The proposed budget was sent to the Pa Senate for consideration.
Quote from Rep. Sam Rohrer (R – Berks):
“In a largely party-line vote, House Democrats this week rejected a balanced, responsible $27.27 billion budget that fully funded vital government services without increasing taxes.
The GOP plan, offered by Republican Appropriations Chairman Mario Civera (R-Delaware) as an amendment to the Democrat budget bill, provided an average increase of about 11 percent for schools in Pennsylvania and made cuts to force government to live within its means. Without the amendment, House Bill 1416, approved and sent to the Senate today, irresponsibly increases spending to $29.1 billion-the most expensive budget proposal in the history of the Commonwealth and a virtual guarantee of increased taxes.
To balance their budget and to leverage support for a large tax increase, House Democrats completely eliminated $1.2 billion in funding for the 14 state system universities, community colleges, and PHEAA.”
Read that last paragraph again… cut funding for education to leverage support to increase taxes… to fund education!
Outraged?
You should be! Ed Rendell and company are throwing away your money! Even worse is the fact that they’re going to raise your taxes, while many Pennsylvanians are struggling just to make ends meet. It’s time we stand up to the money-grabbers in Harrisburg. Call them and let them know that it’s not permissible to throw away our money, then demand that we pay more!
Who to contact:
Governor Edward G. Rendell’s Office
225 Main Capitol Building
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17120
Phone: (717) 787-2500
Fax: (717) 772-8284
Hon. Todd A. Eachus – House Majority Leader
District Office:
1 West Broad St.
Suite 3
Hazleton, PA 18201
(570) 450-7905
Fax: (570) 459-3946
Harrisburg Office
110 Main Capitol Building
PO Box 202116
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2116
(717) 787-2229
Fax: (717) 772-9991
Hon. Dwight Evans – Majority Appropriations Committee Chairman
District Office
7174 Ogontz Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19138
(215) 549-0220
Fax: (215) 549-8965
Harrisburg Office
512-E Main Capitol Building
PO Box 202203
Harrisburg, PA 17120-2203
(717) 783-1540
Fax: (717) 787-2334
More:
PA House of Representatives Membership Listing
PA Senate Membership Listing
For Commonwealth employees affected by the budget impasse:
If you do not receive at least the minimum wage for all hours worked in your next paycheck, plus overtime, contact the U. S. Dept. of Labor, Wage and Hour Division at 570-826-6316, Ext. 8646, to file a claim.
Tags: budget, contact, democrat, eachus, evans, fair labor standards act, flsa, governor, hb 1416, house bill 1416, impasse, labor, minimum wage, pa, payless payday, pennsylvania, rendell, representative, republican, rohrer, senator, state employees, stop-gap, stopgap, tax, tax increase, taxes, us department of labor, us dept of labor
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Yep. You betcha! The AFSCME workers already started filing last week. We will file again on the 31st because, since a budget was not signed yesterday (July 20) there is probably no way the State can process the payroll in time. (Their website makes it look like it takes 11 days to get through payroll and Treasury processing).
You forgot another big cost to the taxpayers though. AFSCME filed a class action grievance on behalf of all their employees on payday. Their master agreement (the labor contract the State signed) has language in that provides for bi-weekly pay in the amount of the classification pay rates listed in the agreement. They aren’t doing that. So the grievance is for backpay PLUS INTEREST. Since it is statewide it will go to the Office of Administration then probably arbitration. SO. Add the interest that may be awarded onto what the taxpayers will pay for Ed’s ego!
There are lots of details and information on these and similar topcs at http://www.floor9.com and my blog as well. You can see the grievances on the AFSCME Council 13 site.
Glad to see AFSCME is finally doing something. However, I don’t put much faith in AFSCME following through with anything that puts it at odds with Rendell.
A prime example is the recent cut in the amount that the Commonwealth pays for employee benefits:
AFSCME pushed their members to agree to a reduction, under the threat of rolling furloughs and regular furloughs, if it didn’t pass. Well, it passed. As it turns out, Rendell couldn’t institute rolling furloughs without AFSCME’s permission, as it would violate the Master Agreement. A couple weeks later, Rendell announces that he is planning to furlough 800 employees anyway… go figure!
Of course, this reduction in the Commonwealth’s contribution to the PEBTF negates the possibility of AFSCME members excercising the clause in the Master Agreement that would allow them to return to not paying a percentage of their salary towards their benefits, if and when the PEBTF reached a certain level of cash reserves. That was one of AFSCME’s selling points to their membership during the last contract negotiation. With the recent cut, the possibility of the PEBTF ever reaching that level of cash reserves is very unlikely.
The bottom line is that they handed Rendell exactly what he wanted at their members’ expense, then AFSCME idly watches, while he makes plans to do exactly what he said he wouldn’t do. It makes you wonder who AFSCME actually represents, doesn’t it?
There is obviously a problem within AFSCME’s upper echelon. Whether that problem is incompetence, complacency, or corruption is academic. The fact remains that they are basically ineffective at protecting their members’ interests. AFSCME is long overdue for some housekeeping.
Remember… Politicians and diapers need changed for the same reason… that includes the pseudo-politicians that run AFSCME.
Hey everyone, print out or buy the car window paint ….. we need to get the
message across…..
Rendell, stop using
state employees as
pawns in your game.
Pay them NOW!!!
or something similar. Rendell is using state employees as pawns, not paying
them, in order to force the house to approve his tax increase of 16% !!!!! The
FEDERAL law (FSLA fair labor standards act) says he HAS to pay people for work
they do, Rendell says that PA laws supercede federal laws, and he can hold the
pay… after the last time this happened, the federal government passed the FSLA
law saying that pay CANNOT be withheld!
Even if you are not a state employee, show some support! THANK YOU!
An addendum: I haven’t seen anywhere that AFSCME filed a class action lawsuit, in fact, http://www.afscme13.org says that afscme CANNOT file a lawsuit , ” Regarding partial and/or payless paychecks, AFSCME cannot file a lawsuit on behalf of members for this violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Only the U.S. Dept. of Labor can sue the state for unpaid wages, liquidated damages or injunctive relief. HOWEVER, individual employees CAN and SHOULD file a complaint through the U.S. Dept. of Labor once a full paycheck is not received.”
Found the grievance tha AFSCME has supposedly filed, although filling out the information, scanning it, and posting it to the internet isn’t quite the final step in filing it.
You can see the scans here:
http://www.afscme13.org/documents/CLASSACTIONGRWEB.pdf
[...] Rendell and Friends may cost Pennsylvania billions of dollars … [...]