On the fifth day... give it a rest.
Gov. Jon Huntsman's four-day, 10-hour week for state workers hasn't been in place a fortnight and the kvetchers are putting in for overtime.Sheesh. Shut your pie holes.
When Huntsman announced the energy saving plan, he described it as a trial, which means of course, glitches, unintended consequences, etc. will emerge and probably dealth with. If not we'll have to try something else.
Major complaints about the so-called Working for Utah Initiative, so far:
• Workers' childcare arrangements — Probably the most legitimate concern. But arranging childcare is always a nightmare for working parents. Not to be cold, but somehow, parents usually figure something out.
• Unconstitutional — no it's not.
• Inconvenient to the public who put everything off until Friday — No matter what hours the drivers license offices, for instance, keep, people work it so they have to take the hated number and wait. Of course, we could have gotten up at 7 a.m. and breezed through.
• Public frustrated with closed state offices — What can I say? If you don't read a newspaper, watch TV news or listen to a radio (KSL's talkjock Doug Wright and his callers beat the subject senseless), well, you aren't reading this either.
• It makes state workers "look lazy" — No joke, a state worker told me this was his beef with the 4/10 schedule. Memo to state workers: Everyone already thought you were goldbricks.
• All-consuming envy of state workers who get long weekends to have lives — I'll get some counseling.
10 Comments:
Simple remedy is to divide the workers up, where half get off on Friday, and the other half get off on Monday. The State offices stay open five days a week, but employees work their four days/ 10 hour shift.
That's stupid. That defeats the whole purpose. The point was to have the offices CLOSED, not to give the state workers 4-day weeks they don't want.
It is Unconstitutional. It is a taking of a vested property right that the workers had in certain holidays- I believe Columbus Day was one of them- without compensation. Huntsman could avoid this by going to the Legislature and asking for those holidays to be funded. (and no they are not under the new 4-10system) I believe it will be about $5 Million but that is only a guess.
a "vested property right" that workers had? How much can I sell my rights to Columbus Day for? Shit, here's a list of the holidays I'd work on for normal compensation in exchange for a a equivalent vacation time (that's what the guv's plan does):
Martin Luther Kind Day
President's Day
Labor Day
Columbus Day
Veterans Day
The rest, I'm pretty attached to. But seriously, calling vacation days a property right, esp when the guv gave equal holiday hours w/ pay in exchange for an extra day off every week, is pretty damn stupid.
Yeah. . . not so sure about a vested right. (However, not completely impossible.) It would be interesting, however, to examine whether or not there is a separation of powers argument here. Specifically, whether or not the Legislature has granted state employees certain days off by statute, and if the Governor’s plan allows for such laws. If not, then the employees might have some sort of interest to be protected- even if only a legal one.
Maybe the previous poster knows if there is a law that gives state employees federal holidays off?
I'm wondering if anyone has considered the social cost that is hard to price. Perhaps Glen could look in to such a thing himself or pass the idea along to some hotshot reporter. We lost one of our coaches due to his inability to arrive at weekly practices because of the new schedule. I guess we can find someone else out to help the kids. I'm also safely guessing that we're not the only ones needing to replace a valuable volunteer thanks to our fearless leader and this large scale media PR of saving some money. I learned that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Social volunteerism on many levels may be the price for at least a portion of our lunch.
I know of a person who works for the state who can no longer volunteer with a local Scouting organization becuase they get off work too late.
I also wonder about efficiency. While we are saving some money by turning off lights and computers, I wonder if government employees have become more efficient at all. One book on government management I read suggested that such schedules do increase productivity in some cases. Any way to research that?
Often the person (at any given division) I need to speak with at a State office isn't there for whatever reason. So, now I can't get ANYONE on a Friday and will they finally be available the other 4 days. Well, so far the answer is NO.
Have had needs with the DMV, already person(s) not there. Just today, Aug 12th at 4:45pm, tried to get with the one person who handles registrations to use various services on Utah.gov. She left early. They've had the application for a bit over a month, nothing been done and of course, the person is NOT THERE.
So, the state workers get Fridays off AND still must take time off during the 4 days they are supposed to be there?
As long as the state requires things of their citizens, I belive they should operate during a 'normal business hours' And don't tell me it's all my choice therefore I could avoid any dealings with the state ever. And, I don't even mind many of the requirements. I just want to be able to get something handled without two weeks of continual phone tag, unreturned calls and a complete lack of sense of responsibility or obligation from said state employees.
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Glen,
You apparently haven't been to the DLD Office on 4500 S. 2700 West. Took my buddy there, pre-4-day-work-week, a half-hour before the doors opened and waited in the parking lot for THREE hours for his return. Bitch of it is, he didn't have enough money to cover the years-old fine he had to pay to get his license, which he learned after waiting so patiently. I'm sure that wait ain't getting any better. At any rate, I took him to the Fairgrounds DLD office a couple weeks later at the same time and the wait was something on the order of 35 minutes. Let that be a tip to anyone reading this. Fairgrounds DLD ain't no joke.
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