Republicans are again launching a public campaign to push the state employees union to back down and consider a pay freeze. The House Appropriations Committee approved a resolution yesterday urging the Governor and the state employees unions to reopen contract talks.House Appropriations Committee chairman Bill Dix, a republican from Shell Rock, says republicans believe state worker salaries should be frozen for at least a couple of years. Dix says if salaries aren’t frozen, there will be lots of layoffs. Dix can’t pinpoint how many layoffs might be required throughout state government, but he says in just the Department of Human Services, about 200 workers would have to be laid off in order to provide the salary increases that’ve been negotiated under union contracts. Union officials resist a salary freeze, arguing workers have earned that salary hike because they’re doing more work with all the layoffs that’ve already happened in state government. Dix says workers do deserve praise, but the state can’t afford the pay raises. Dix says the state has about the same amount of money to spend this coming year, yet workers are scheduled to get 70-million dollars in pay raises. He says “something’s got to give.”
