California workers protest at Bee over online salary database

Sacramento Bee ^ | 3/13/8 | Andy Furillo

[SmithL]

About 100 angry members of California's largest state workers union launched a sidewalk protest against The Bee on Wednesday for posting a searchable database of state employees' salaries on the newspaper's Web site.

Shouting slogans and carrying placards in front of the newspaper's building, the members of the 80,000-strong Service Employees International Union Local 1000 criticized The Bee for what they said was a violation of their right to personal privacy. Union leaders met privately with Bee executives and presented petitions with an estimated 3,000 signatures demanding that the paper take down the database, at www.sacbee.com/statepay.

Union President Jim Hard told the protesters that he was "disgusted" by what he described as the paper's "crass commercialism" and "callous disregard" for his members' safety.

[SmithL]

Members of the Service Employees International Union Local 1000 rally Wednesday in front of The Bee as they criticize a searchable database of state employees' salaries on the newspaper's Web site. Bee officials say the database is public information and relevant to budget issues.

[nascarnation]

I know the Purdue student newspaper prints the salary of every Purdue employee (President down to cafeteria worker).
They get it via state FoI request.
My wife and daughter are both public school teachers and their salaries are on the public record.

[WayneS]

The salaries of public employees are public information.

[wally_bert]

The State (Shop Road Pravda) has been publishing the list of SC state employees who make over $50,000 for years. No one really seems to care except those who are dying to make the list and those who are ticked that they aren't.

[kingu]

The combined salary for the African American Museum is $1.1mil per year, and supposedly has only 19 employees. None of whom are listed as a janitor. But the librarians rake in the bucks!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

If they want privacy, they should get a real job.

[Young Scholar]

The paper's explanations have not satisfied state workers. At Wednesday's rally, Dana Meza, who has worked at the Department of Motor Vehicles for eight years, said that since the salaries were posted "some people actually were called by bill collectors."

Tragic.

[dragnet2]

state workers union launched a sidewalk protest for posting a searchable database of state employees' salaries on the newspaper's Web site.

Shouting slogans and carrying placards in front of the newspaper's building, the members of the 80,000-strong Service Employees International Union

Why in **** is there 80,000 government employees in one state? How many are on the federal payroll here? How about the local level?

This reminds me of an article I read that said we now have over 20 million government employees in the U.S. not including the military.

What are all these people doing?

And why are they making such large salaries, being provided excellent health benefits, not to speak of their government paid, high end retirement pensions.

Why has government at all levels not been reduced and downsized like in the private sector?

I say we reduce goevernment at all level by 10 million or so. Get them off the tax payers backs.

What's left, pay these public servants $8.50 per hour.

[riverdawg]

This is standard practice in many states. The local pigeon-cage liner publishes only the salaries of the state university employees who make over $100K so as to avoid claims that it is embarrassing the low-level workers by publishing their salaries.

[kingu]

It appears also that they now require registration to look at the database. And - huh, I wonder how much we are paying for them to be marching out there.. Let me look up their names off their tags and find out.. :)

More seriously, they should be pouring over this website and seriously wonder why a typist at California’s Health Families program pulls down twice as much as a typist at the DMV. Obviously their union dues aren’t paying off.

[pepsionice]

If 90 percent of these protesters knew the salaries of their fellow protesters...they’d likely walk away from the whole mess in disgust.

I work in the contracting world for the military...where salaries are absolute secretive in nature. We had a employee who discovered a three-tier housing allowance existed eight years ago...and she got all upset that this existed (she was in the middle-tier). So she raised this fuss and the company agreed it was a issue....so they dumped the three tiers to one...and set everyone to the lowest tier (the higher tier folks lost $3k per year and the middle tier lost $2k). The minute this gal grasped that she’d lost $2k....she was furious....but then the other employees all dumped on her for triggering this and costing a number of them $3k a year. She quit four months later. For me...after they dumped the two tiers...they created a totally new allowance out of thin air...and gave me a $5k raise per year. I just sat there and laughed over the whole....quietly.

[gunservative]

The salaries of public employees are public information

And have been in most other states for many many years......

[peggybac]

I wonder how many hits the 2 employees named in the article have received. I looked both of their salaries up just out of curiosity.

[Signalman]

The salaries of public employees are public information.

Absolutely. As a former federal emp., I can attest to the fact that public employee salaries are not subject to the Privacy Act or any similar law. Citizens have the right to know what federal, state and municipal employees are paid. After all, they're the ones paying the salaries.

[freekitty]

Tough. You work for the public.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

The best and the brightest Bee brains say. "The citizens have a right to know!"

Uh.. everything that should be public information that's not tied up in ongoing legal procedures, for example?

"Wot? Yes, of course. Everything. We are strong advocates of the citizens rights! Always have been here at the Bee!"

What about the 14-billion-dollar budget deficit and how much of that is due to ILLEGAL aliens getting social benefits -- and the cost of keeping convicted criminal ILLEGAL aliens in jails and prisons?

"Wot? Bigot! Xenophobe! Racist! We'll not stand for that kind right-wing hate mongering! Get lost!"

"Yes!" screamed Service Employees International Union Local 1000 officials. "Get lost you @$#&! bigot!"

[freekitty]

Now tell me again; what exactly is the public paying for? A lot of the salaries are well over what the private sector is earning. Especially here in Houston.

[Roccus]

65,000 state workers in WV. (pop. about 2 mil)

All WV state salaries are listed here

http://media.graytvinc.com/documents/2006WVGrossCompensation.pdf

[sbMKE]

$46k (DMV) and $38K (Social Services) for the two quoted.

[dashing doofus]

Mon dieu! We can’t have the taxpayers, who pay our salaries, know how much we are making! An outrage!!!