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Kentucky State Workers Save Paid Vacation Days

August 4, 2009

Vacation Pay Win

FIGHTERS FOR JUSTICE – Kentucky Corrections Officers Jamie Lawrence and Joe Blincoe are among the AFSCME members who successfully lobbied state representatives to defeat a proposal to cut their holiday pay.

Photo Credit: David Patterson

In the midst of their campaign to bring a union contract to 9,000 state employees, members of AFSCME Council 62, learned recently that the governor wanted to suspend three to five paid holidays for all state employees. Battle-hardened already, the union’s activists mounted a full-court press to defeat the plan – and won.

David Warrick, executive director of Council 62 and an International vice president, says the proposal of Gov. Steve Beshear (D) to suspend three paid holidays for workers making less than $50,000 a year, and five holidays for those making more, was a political misstep.
“The savings he would get – a little over $10 million – sounds like a lot of money, but when you’re talking about a $1 billion deficit, it doesn’t make much difference,” he explains.

It would have made a great difference to the thousands of Kentucky public employees, who would have lost the equivalent of between $300 and $600. “I don’t get a holiday from paying my bills,” says April Tidwell, a state child protection and permanency worker and leader in AFSCME’s efforts to bring a union contract to Kentucky workers. “The governor needs to look somewhere else.”

And thanks to the determination of Council 62 activists, that’s exactly what happened. In just 10 days, they sent 2,000 e-mails and made 500 phone calls to lawmakers. Many sacrificed personal or vacation time to lobby lawmakers directly. Their efforts were rewarded: The House and Senate dropped the governor’s holiday pay-cut plan.
“It proves state employees do have a voice and the power to make changes,” says Warrick.

Learn more in the Louisville Courier-Journal and The State Journal.

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