Well this could explain why the negotiations between the government and its public servants have dragged on and on with seemingly no light at the end of the table. It seems due to a “computer” glitch; those pounding the payment are pounding it all the way to the bank! No wonder the rank and file are jumping at the chance to hit the bricks!
Greg Weston reports in the Tuesday Sun papers that our public servants have discovered the best of both worlds, exercising their collective bargaining rights while at the same collecting a full pay cheque. Not bad work if you can find it, avoid it or not even report for it!
As Weston says, “in a situation that could only happen in government", the public employees who currently are engaging in rotating strikes, are finding that there’s not a lot of sacrifice involved when you walk a picket line. In fact when you add in the strike pay provided by the union, the workers on the line are actually coming out further ahead, solidarity forever indeed!
The government officials are tripping over themselves trying to deflect responsibility for the mess, eventually coming up with the “computer glitch” story and that’s what they’re sticking with. By modest calculations each striking worker has been paid 200 dollars a day for their days of inaction, a situation that has been carrying on for the last six weeks! We’ll leave the fancy mathematical work to you dear Boondoggle reader, but be prepared to give your abacus a work out. Considering the Government officials don’t seem to know from day to day how many of their employees are out on strike, the total cost could be anyone’s guess.
Government officials have stated they have begun the process of “recovering” the “un-earned salary from their workforce, but they plan on doing it in a gradual basis. Apparently just taking a lump sum of monies owed by the workers from their next "earned" paycheque is not a proper way of handling this problem. It seems something that simplistic is not the way to go in Government circles. Instead it will take a battalion of non striking accounting clerks and supervisors to determine where the money went and who received it, and when they might feel like paying it back.
Certainly it makes for gentler, more understanding form of monetary recovery for our civil servants. Of course the Government isn’t quite that understanding of the tax payer on the 30th of April now is it?
The above post first appeared in my Boondoggle blog, for more items about Government spending (and occassional collecting!) check things out.
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