Pretend for a moment that your boss comes to you and tells you the company you work for had a tough year and needs to cut costs. He asks you to sacrifice 3% of your annual salary to help get the company back on solid footing. Even though you haven't had a raise in over four years, you have been with the company for decades and agree to sacrifice.
Later that week you find out that with the money saved from cutting your pay, your boss has given raises to those closest to him and monetary benefits to his closest allies at other companies around the state. And even after that, he goes to the board of directors and asks for a major increase in the budget for his office and staff.
Now open your eyes. This scenario isn't a dream, it's reality in Florida. You are a public worker and your boss is Governor Scott.
Starting today, nearly 655,000 public employees around Florida will be facing a 3% pay cut thanks to pension reform legislation passed by the Florida Legislature and signed by Governor Scott. There is no question Florida is in the midst of an unprecedented economic downturn. And for years public workers have been first to sacrifice.
But this new reform legislation flies in the face of what Governor Scott and the Florida Legislature preached on the campaign trail during 2010. This most recent attack on public workers exposes Governor Scott's lack of leadership and unwillingness to make the tough-to-swallow choices that working families around the state have been making for years.
Then-candidate Rick Scott spoke of how Floridians would need to sacrifice and tighten their belts in order to get Florida back on a track to economic prosperity. But if the last legislative session is any indication, Governor Scott and the Florida Legislature meant that advice for everyone but themselves.
After taking 3% of the salaries of public workers during the worst economic climate in recent Florida history, the governor and legislature handed out $37 million in corporate tax breaks to big businesses and political donors. Will you sleep better tonight knowing that while families are struggling to put food on the table, Carnival Cruise Lines and Disney saved a few bucks this year?
And while he told Floridians we had to tighten our belts and sacrifice this year, Governor Scott was simultaneously asking you, the taxpayers, to give him an $800 million increase in the budget of his office. I thought we were all supposed to be sacrificing here?
The truth is working families and the middle class will be the engine behind any economic recovery in Florida. By balancing the budget on the backs of public workers and failing to make painful sacrifices, the governor is stifling any economic recovery in Florida.
On the day when working families, again, have to tighten their belts because of the anti-worker, anti-middle class agenda in Tallahassee, we're asking Governor Scott and the Florida Legislature: where is the sacrifice?
Florida Public Services Union represents 19,000 workers in eight counties, 16 cities, three head start agencies and four school districts across Florida. 'Like' FPSU on Facebook here.
