Employees plan informational picket
Look for informational pickets at offices of the San Joaquin valley Air Pollution Control District on Thursday.
District employees are upset about "the high level of turnover and lack of retention of qualified and highly trained staff." They say wages are an average of 18% below comparable districts in California.
Contract talks have been going on since July, and the old contract expired at the end of September.
The Valley air district has one of the lower operating budgets in the state. Officials say the district gets more bang for the public's buck.
Officials also say the turnover is about 10%, which is considered average and desirable. They say salaries can't be the same as those in the Bay Area or Los Angeles.
Employees say it's time for higher wages to keep competent workers at the district.
The pickets are supposed to occur between noon and 1 p.m. in Bakersfield at 2700 M St.; Fresno at 1990 E. Gettysburg Ave., and Modesto at 4800 Enterprise Way.
Comments:
Tax payers dont pay valley air employees salaries polluters do including big oil right now who isnt doing so bad.
Posted by: Reyna E . Rivera at October 9, 2008 3:49 PM
The air pollution is so bad in the valley that they should pay MORE than the state average to get the best people working on the problems!
Posted by: Here's to Health at October 10, 2008 3:18 PM
Apparently nobody really cares about LOCAL smog, especially the news services in Fresno. Yesterday, there was a fire due east of Clovis from Shaw Avenue. I couldn't find a mention of it in the Fresno Bee or on any of the news channels. Yet, the sky was full of the smoke polution. We get a plethora of "news stories" but a sad shortage of real news being reported by real reporters. Somebody in the news services should focus on the real sources of pollution in the valley not just the ones that are politically appropriate.
Posted by: Richard Daniels at October 15, 2008 1:39 PM
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