Union urges pressure on County Commission at today’s meeting

By Joe Schoenmann

Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2011 | 2 a.m.

The county’s largest public employees union is trying to turn up the heat on county administrators by urging their members to show up in force at today’s meeting of the Clark County Commission.

The Service Employees International Union handed out colorful fliers last week asking its members to call commissioners, come to the meeting and “let your voice be heard!”

The issue they’ve been drumming for weeks boils down to their resistance to cuts as the county and union chiefs engage in contract talks.

“We are part of the community, we are doing more with less, we have taken the cuts and felt the pain the rest of our community has felt,” the flier states.

Two years ago, the county cut the union’s cost-of-living increase from 3 percent to 1 percent; last year, union members took 2 percent salary cuts.

But county administrators noted Monday — and distributed to commissioners a chart showing as much — that even after the concessions, service employee union members have received average total salary increases of 12.5 percent since 2009. Furthermore, if the union and county don’t come to an agreement by the end of the fiscal year, that average increase will rise to about 15 percent.

Although the SEIU brought the focus on itself with fliers and postings on its website, what comes through in the county chart is that in total, the 11 public employee unions in Clark County have seen wage increases of 11.3 percent, on average, since 2009.

Only the county public defenders, special public defenders and M-Plan employees (managers), who are not unionized, have seen their wages fall, by 1.1 percent.

Although county employee unions have agreed to some concessions, many still received merit pay, cost-of-living increases or longevity pay, resulting in an overall average increase in their wages, according to county administrators.