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« #48 : May 10, 2013, 01:12:54 PM » |
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A bill allowing deputy state’s attorneys to vote on joining a union is unlikely to pass this legislative session.
Last week, Sen. Dick Sears, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, requested that the bill lie, citing concerns that his committee doesn’t know enough about pay and working conditions for all attorneys employed by the state.
“We have so many attorneys working in state government, it seems to me. We’d have to take a real good look at that,” said Sears on the floor, before requesting an indefinite postponement of the bill, which the full Senate approved.
But Steve Howard, who lobbies for the state employees’ union, said he expected that legislation will at least clear the Senate this session. After meeting with the Senate Economic Development Committee, the union clarified minor questions from lawmakers, according to Howard.
“A few more senators have just some clarifying questions that we have to sort out, and then we should be OK,” said Howard. He believes the Senate will take up the legislation again this week, but does not expect the House to take it up before adjournment, which Speaker Shap Smith has targeted for Saturday.
The deputy state’s attorney unionization bill is among several labor bills in action this session. Others include legislation regarding “agency” or so-called “fair share fees” and efforts to unionize home health care and child-care workers.
Although this debate has centered heavily on inadequate pay for deputy state’s attorneys, Howard argues there are other issues at stake.
“For the deputies that I’ve spoken to, this is about going forward into the future, knowing that there is an entity here, that’s watching out for them, so that they don’t fall through the cracks again,” he said.
Sen. Philip Baruth, D-Chittenden, explained to his colleagues when he introduced the bill that the public sector deputy prosecutor jobs have suffered from “brain drain.”
Current pay levels for deputy state’s attorneys are “abysmal,” he said. Deputy state’s attorneys make far less than assistant attorneys general and often don’t receive pay raises.
Baruth said the Senate Economic Development Committee heard about a young deputy state’s attorney who works as a waiter in southern Vermont on weekends to make ends meet. She makes more waiting tables than as a deputy state’s attorney, Baruth said.
“What we’re trying to do is address a brain drain in the deputy state’s attorneys. … Often they leave the position because they can’t afford to exist on the salary they’re being paid,” Baruth said.
Posted in News Briefs | Tagged Deputy state's attorneys, legislature, Senate, unionization.
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