By Chuck Muth
Almost a half-million private sector Nevada workers have been deemed by Gov. Baron von Sisolak as “non-essential” and have lost their jobs. Meanwhile, there have been no layoffs of non-essential government workers.
Now the City of Las Vegas has given us a preview of the lengths the government is willing to go to protect the Royal Family (might wanna sit down for this one). The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported late Friday afternoon that some 1,300 city workers are going to receive a 3 percent BONUS check in early July “whether or not they were working during the coronavirus pandemic.” But get this…
Since there’s no money in the city budget to afford the bonus, the city is counting on getting money from the federal CARES relief package to pay for it. However, the CARES bill specifically says you can’t use CARES money to pay for government workplace bonuses. How to get around it?
In typical government fashion, by calling it “hazard” pay instead of “bonus” pay — even though for some workers the only “hazard” they’ve encountered was tripping over the cat on the way to grabbing a bag of chips and a beer while watching “The View.”
This is an old word-game the government plays. Remember when voters rejected the “Margins Tax” by a whopping 80-20 percent at the ballot box in 2014, only to have Gov. Sandoval rename it the “Commerce Tax” and pass it in the Legislature six short months later?
This is EXACTLY why so many Republicans on Capitol Hill object to using disaster relief money to bail out local and state governments. While private sector workers and businesses are being devastated by the #SisolakShutdown, government employee unions are already scrambling furiously to assure that the Royal Family suffers “no wage rollbacks, no concessions in fringe benefits and no changes to health insurance, sick leave, annual leave and other bargaining items.”
And make no mistake, similar smoke-and-mirror shenanigans will be played at the Legislature whenever it meets again — either in Special Session later this summer or during the regular session next year.
The Royal Family will fight tooth and nail to avoid the same pain the peasants who pay their salaries are suffering. All manner of gimmicks and budget tricks will be used to avoid layoffs and reductions in pay and benefits.
Because, let’s face it, EVERY government employee, no matter how non-essential, is better than and more important than you. Your job is to just shut up, wear a face diaper and accept it.
Let me close with a question… Would you consider a government inspector who comes into a restaurant, measures the distance between tables, finds that they’re separated by five feet/six inches instead of six feet, and writes the owner up for a code violation to be an “essential” government employee? Not me.
The best use of any CARES money by state and local governments isn’t to buy Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) but to invest in a giant Pink Slip Printing Press. Let the layoffs begin!
Royal Family Attempts another Raid of the Taxpayers’ Cookie Jar Here we go again. Another clan of the government employee Royal Family is trying to exploit the coronavirus crisis so they don’t have to suffer the pain the rest of us have been experiencing.
Clark County School District employees get paid a full-time salary to work 10 months out of the year. As such, they are NOT eligible for unemployment benefits during the summer when school’s out. And they’ve been paid their full salaries throughout the #SisolakShutdown.
But now the union representing school support employees is trying to take advantage of the COVID crisis by demanding they get unemployment benefits this summer anyway because they’ll have a hard time finding temporary work until schools reopen in August and they go back to their full-time jobs. Cry me a river.
Over 400,000 peasants working in the private sector have lost their jobs. Many permanently. Yet we’re supposed to use up critically-needed unemployment funds to pay people who have already been paid a full-time salary to work just 10 months out of the year so they can be paid extra for NOT WORKING? I don’t think so.
Get ready folks. This is just the tip of the iceberg that lies beneath the waves. Government employees do not think they should be forced to endure the economic pain Gov. von Sisolak hath wrought. They’re better than you. They’re more essential than you. They’re more special than you. I don’t think so.
* * * * *
Chuck Muth is president of CitizenOutreach.org and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. He blogs at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.
Almost a half-million private sector Nevada workers have been deemed by Gov. Baron von Sisolak as “non-essential” and have lost their jobs. Meanwhile, there have been no layoffs of non-essential government workers.Now the City of Las Vegas has given us a preview of the lengths the government is willing to go to protect the Royal Family (might wanna sit down for this one). The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported late Friday afternoon that some 1,300 city workers are going to receive a 3 percent BONUS check in early July “whether or not they were working during the coronavirus pandemic.” But get this…
Since there’s no money in the city budget to afford the bonus, the city is counting on getting money from the federal CARES relief package to pay for it. However, the CARES bill specifically says you can’t use CARES money to pay for government workplace bonuses. How to get around it?
In typical government fashion, by calling it “hazard” pay instead of “bonus” pay — even though for some workers the only “hazard” they’ve encountered was tripping over the cat on the way to grabbing a bag of chips and a beer while watching “The View.”
This is an old word-game the government plays. Remember when voters rejected the “Margins Tax” by a whopping 80-20 percent at the ballot box in 2014, only to have Gov. Sandoval rename it the “Commerce Tax” and pass it in the Legislature six short months later?
This is EXACTLY why so many Republicans on Capitol Hill object to using disaster relief money to bail out local and state governments. While private sector workers and businesses are being devastated by the #SisolakShutdown, government employee unions are already scrambling furiously to assure that the Royal Family suffers “no wage rollbacks, no concessions in fringe benefits and no changes to health insurance, sick leave, annual leave and other bargaining items.”
And make no mistake, similar smoke-and-mirror shenanigans will be played at the Legislature whenever it meets again — either in Special Session later this summer or during the regular session next year.
The Royal Family will fight tooth and nail to avoid the same pain the peasants who pay their salaries are suffering. All manner of gimmicks and budget tricks will be used to avoid layoffs and reductions in pay and benefits.
Because, let’s face it, EVERY government employee, no matter how non-essential, is better than and more important than you. Your job is to just shut up, wear a face diaper and accept it.
Let me close with a question… Would you consider a government inspector who comes into a restaurant, measures the distance between tables, finds that they’re separated by five feet/six inches instead of six feet, and writes the owner up for a code violation to be an “essential” government employee? Not me.
The best use of any CARES money by state and local governments isn’t to buy Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) but to invest in a giant Pink Slip Printing Press. Let the layoffs begin!
Royal Family Attempts another Raid of the Taxpayers’ Cookie Jar Here we go again. Another clan of the government employee Royal Family is trying to exploit the coronavirus crisis so they don’t have to suffer the pain the rest of us have been experiencing.
Clark County School District employees get paid a full-time salary to work 10 months out of the year. As such, they are NOT eligible for unemployment benefits during the summer when school’s out. And they’ve been paid their full salaries throughout the #SisolakShutdown.
But now the union representing school support employees is trying to take advantage of the COVID crisis by demanding they get unemployment benefits this summer anyway because they’ll have a hard time finding temporary work until schools reopen in August and they go back to their full-time jobs. Cry me a river.
Over 400,000 peasants working in the private sector have lost their jobs. Many permanently. Yet we’re supposed to use up critically-needed unemployment funds to pay people who have already been paid a full-time salary to work just 10 months out of the year so they can be paid extra for NOT WORKING? I don’t think so.
Get ready folks. This is just the tip of the iceberg that lies beneath the waves. Government employees do not think they should be forced to endure the economic pain Gov. von Sisolak hath wrought. They’re better than you. They’re more essential than you. They’re more special than you. I don’t think so.
* * * * *
Chuck Muth is president of CitizenOutreach.org and publisher of NevadaNewsandViews.com. He blogs at MuthsTruths.com. His views are his own.
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