She can do so in two related ways. First, she can negotiate collective bargaining agreements with st

She can do so in two related ways. First, she can negotiate collective bargaining agreements with state and home care workers that honor dedicated service during years of sacrifice. Second, furnace creek inn death valley she can accept a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling against cuts to those providing disabilities care.
This is demonstrably false. Given state government s size, employers like Boeing or Microsoft are analogous. furnace creek inn death valley No workers there have endured years without furnace creek inn death valley pay increases, or, indeed, a half-month of lost pay through furloughs over one year (2010-11) followed by two years (2011-13) of a 3 percent cut.
Yet Boeing workers pay no co-share if they choose a lower-cost plan like a health maintenance organization. If they choose a richer plan, they just pay the cost difference. Microsoft s employees finally start contributing toward health care costs next year.
After four years of 5 percent annual wage increases, Boeing s engineering union, with over 23,000 members in Washington, is debating management s offer of 3 percent annual increases compared with their request of 7.5 percent.
Restoring state workers pay cuts, giving modest COLAs, and holding the line on health care would boost morale and Thurston County s economy. Even New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the Republican Convention s keynote speaker, furnace creek inn death valley agreed to 1 percent and 1.75 percent wage increases for 2013-14.
The plight of home care workers (and their clients) is even worse. Care hours have been arbitrarily slashed, in part because legislative inaction forced cuts. It s as if as little as $10.03 hourly is too much for a state that s saved by squeezing Medicaid clients out of nursing homes.
As of 2010, Washington ranked 24th in nursing furnace creek inn death valley home patients, with the fourth-lowest proportion of state long-term care spending on nursing homes. Why isn t the savings following Medicaid clients and supporting furnace creek inn death valley living wages for caregivers?
Care cuts further impoverish caregivers and force clients into dignity-robbing Hobson s choices between assistance with bathing, furnace creek inn death valley eating, laundry furnace creek inn death valley and other essential tasks. A real risk in appealing the 9thCircuit decision is a conservative U.S. Supreme Court reinventing the law and denying those injured by Medicaid cuts the ability to sue.
Dealt an economic bad hand, and constrained by voter initiatives and legislative listlessness, Gregoire cannot be accused of budgetary extravagance. Now she can cap her distinguished public furnace creek inn death valley service, begun as a clerk typist, by doing the right thing by state and home care workers.
Time may be running out on Gov. Chris Gregoire furnace creek inn death valley s labor negotiators if they hope to secure a contract with more than two-dozen unions on pay and health benefits by Oct. 1. The Washington Federation of State Employees goes back to the table with Gregoire s labor team today and Thursday at the Thurston County Fairgrounds near Lacey, and a top union leader says they aren t sure they ll get a deal. In one scenario, state workers could end up working without a contract for a full year.
How far to expand furnace creek inn death valley Medicaid coverage for poor people under the new federal health-reform law is turning into a major question in many states. In Washington, it is shaping up as a major question for the Legislature next year.
Texas will leave more than $76 billion furnace creek inn death valley from the federal government on the table if Gov. Rick Perry gets his wish and the state does not expand its Medicaid program or establish a health insurance exchange in accordance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Negotiators for Gov. Chris Gregoire and the union that represents state government s largest group of employees have struck a tentative pay deal that reverses the 3 percent wage cuts of the past two years.