Oklahoma: Workers Hit with Furloughs, Loss of Pension, More Pay Cuts

Public workers in Oklahoma also are facing a tough assault.

Activists with the Oklahoma State Workers Union/CWA Local 6086 discussed strategies for building support in the state legislature against pension and benefit cutbacks at the AFL-CIO COPE Conference.

The state legislature is going after public workers’ pensions, jobs and, for municipal workers, their bargaining rights. “Members of CWA Local 6012 in Broken Arrow and Stillwater will lose their voice on the job if this measure goes through,” CWA District 6 Vice President Andy Milburn said.

State workers, members of Oklahoma State Workers/CWA Local 6086, already have made big economic sacrifices, taking two furlough days a month, the equivalent of a 10 percent pay cut. But the legislature wants more.

The furloughs are a serious issue for CWA members at the Department of Corrections, the officers who are responsible for maintaining security and controlling inmates in the state’s prison system. Before the furloughs, one corrections officer had responsibility for 160 inmates. With furloughs, corrections officers must look after more inmates. The result has been more attacks on officers and violent incidents spinning out of control.

“With fewer officers looking over more prisoners, our members often are forced to wait until there is a lockdown before they can assist a colleague who is being threatened or attacked,” said Lisa Sells, Local 6086’s organizing coordinator. Three thousand of the department’s corrections officers currently have been furloughed.

That bad situation will likely get worse under proposals now being considered in the state legislature.

“Our department’s budget request is $35 million but legislators are offering to appropriate just $9 million,” Sells said. “This will result in more cutbacks, creating a much more dangerous prison environment, and permanent layoffs for many of our members.”

Since state workers formed their union in 1989, membership has more than doubled. Despite not having collective bargaining rights, the union has accomplished goals through mobilization and legislative and political action.

Now state legislators want to eliminate workers’ defined benefit pensions and replace them with a 401(k) plan. Workers have been contributing 5 percent of their wages into the pension plan. The state hasn’t made any contributions over the past eight years.

Lawmakers also are looking to eliminate a longevity payment that state workers get annually after two years of service. For workers, who earn $10,000 to $24,000 a year, that extra payment “is money they count on to pay their homeowners’ insurance, or other large household expenses,” Sells said.

CWAers are launching a mobilization campaign called, “All Hands On Deck, or Else,” with lobby days and weekly meetings with legislators.

On President’s Day, hundreds of state workers demonstrated against legislators’ attempts to put the burden of closing the budget gap on state workers and their families.