July 13, 2005
Highways raises in 3 counties lead to grievances
By Tom Searls
Staff writer
Seventy-two state Division of Highways workers in the Eastern Panhandle got a
15 percent across-the-board pay raise July 1, setting off a firestorm of
grievances filed by other DOH employees across the state.
State Department of Transportation officials got permission for the raises
from the state Personnel Board, along with a 25 percent increase for new
employees hired as truck drivers, mechanics and highway maintenance workers,
said Jeff Black, DOH human resources director.
Black said DOH made the request for higher pay for DOH employees in Berkeley,
Jefferson and Morgan counties because of a “higher cost of living and higher
wages in these counties.” The three counties have found themselves with
“virtually no applicants,” he said.
That doesn’t sit well with members of the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees, the union representing many state employees.
“I realize they’ve got a problem, but they’ve got problems in counties along
Ohio and Pennsylvania and in other counties,” said Ed Hartman, AFSCME state
director.
His group has alerted other DOH employees across the state, including mailing
out a grievance form to be filed with the Education and State Employees’
Grievance Board.
“We’re just two days into it and [the number of grievances filed] was up
around 60 and we expect several hundred,” Hartman said.
Not surprising to Black, who said this is the first time DOH has tried such a
thing. “We’ve got grievances being filed probably as we speak from around the
state,” Black said Tuesday afternoon.
DOH compared state wages with private wages in the three counties, then
factored in the cost of living. The Eastern Panhandle counties have seen an
influx of Washington, D.C., suburbanites in recent years, driving up the cost of
housing. At the same time, the region has a low unemployment rate.
“I’d say the two things are intertwined,” Black said.
During recent attempts to hire new employees in the region, Black said, a
high number declined interviews after finding out the state’s pay scale. Local
concerns about that “as much as anything, that’s the trigger,” he said.
“We were responding to the pleas of our supervisors up there,” he said.
Hartman agrees. He said the initial DOH proposal included pay increases for
supervisors, too, but the state board turned down that idea.
“We think, and our lawyers think, the state code doesn’t allow you to pick
out certain employees and give them across-the-board increases,” he said.
Hartman expects a final decision on whether the state can give such raises to
be decided by the courts.
He noted the DOH district that includes the three counties also has other
counties, meaning “many times people will be working side by side” doing the
same job for less pay.
Black said DOH is looking at Mineral and Hardy counties as other places that
might need the additional pay to remain competitive. That has yet to be decided.
DOH is not planning to do the same thing in other regions of the state.
If DOH makes such plans, Hartman expects to find out about it after the fact.
The union had no knowledge of the emergency state Personnel Board meeting that
made the decision and had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to get
the information.
“We just couldn’t let this go by unchallenged,” Hartman said.
The state Department of Health and Human Resources recently granted pay
increases to Child Protective Services workers. That was a particular class of
employees, though Hartman said it left out some DHHR employees who “cross over
and do similar work.”
To contact staff writer Tom Searls, use e-mail or call 348-5192.
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