Dakota Beacon

We’ve seen the photos and videos of Wisconsin Public Employees “taking over” the capital building in Madison. But what about their counterparts here in North Dakota?

I recently talked briefly to a municipal fireman who complained about a measly 2% raise. I reminded him that inflation over the last two years is near zero. I further stated that while employed in the coal industry, the percent available for annual raises was routinely the cost of living plus a percent or so, and depended on individual performance. His look was that of puzzlement and resistance over my observations. I witnessed firsthand his sense of “entitlement”. To soften the conversation, I acknowledged that fireman have a dangerous job. I didn’t ask how old he would be at retirement.

What we need in North Dakota right now is a clarification of the difference between the accomplishments of the last decade and what must become the goals of the current decade.

Accomplishments of the first decade of the new millennium:

The first decade of the millennium saw average wages in North Dakota grow from around 80% of the national average to over 100% of the national average. This was accomplished primarily through increases in public employee wages employing the theory that “a rising tide raises all ships”. Whatever one thinks about the need for such action, it worked! I personally am pleased that North Dakota wages have risen to equal the nation as a whole.

The payment by state and local governments of all costs related to employee health care insurance and retirement programs was felt, at the beginning of the decade, to be necessary to make up for low wages. But no transition was made during the decade to some public employee participation in these two areas as has been the case for decades in the private sector.

Suggested goals of the current decade:

Public sector leadership must maintain public employee wages at levels near the national average. But we must not continue to provide wage level increases that result in public sector wages continuing to increase as the pace of the last decade. We are no longer in “catch up mode”.

What must be done now is to begin to require public employees to participate in their health insurance and retirement program costs…with perhaps a goal of equaling the private sector in actual employee contributions to these programs within this decade.

The goal should be public/private equity in both wages and employee participation in this decade. But, excuse me, government employees cannot be compared to employees in the oil fields who risk life and limb and create significant profits for their employers each and every day at work.

And the growth in the number of government employees must be curtailed. We simply cannot let North Dakota reach the absurd levels of government that exist in liberal Wisconsin (or Minnesota for that matter). We simply must not let our government employees in North Dakota become so large in numbers and so “entitled” that they act as unprofessionally as those public employees that are currently embarrassing all of the residents of Wisconsin!