Private sector employees who have watched their wages stagnate and their benefits erode under Obama, veterans who’ve seen their benefits cut and the VA mired in scandal and incompetence, as well as the future generations whose economic prospects will be crippled by Obama’s crushing legacy of debt… may be comforted to know how well unionized Government bureaucrats (the new Mandarin Class)… are taken care of in this “Age of Austerity” politicians claim we are living in it.
The labor union representing employees at the National Weather Service is demanding major upgrades to a new water resources facility at the University of Alabama, including that each employee have a soundproof office, receive a pay increase, and have access to a community garden.
The National Water Center will soon open on the University campus in Tuscaloosa, after construction was completed in December 2013. The National Weather Service Employees Organization (NWSEO) has submitted a list of demands to add to the $18.8 million facility before they begin their work.
A list of “National Water Center Proposals” submitted on May 28, obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, reveal the extravagant demands made by the union.
“Cubicles will not be used in the building, each person will have their own office,” the union has demanded. The office walls will be a minimum of 3 inches thick and “insulated with ‘Quiet Batt 30 Soundproofing Insulation.’”
The offices will also be furnished with a desk from the Kathy Ireland Southampton Onyx Collection, have a “Freedom Task Chair with Headrest,” and a 51 inch Samsung television, with a cable package that includes all available news and weather channels.
Common areas will be painted the shade “marine” and all office areas will be painted in the shade “beeswax,” according to the document. The NWSEO also wants all artwork to be from “local artists within a 50 mile radius” of Tuscaloosa and the art is required to have a “water theme.”
Break rooms will also be furnished with Samsung TVs, a refrigerator, stove and oven, microwave, and an eating table that is “at least 18 square feet” as well as “10 Wynwood Garden Walk Arm Chairs.”
Notice how the union failed to say how all these luxuries will help NWS employees do their jobs.
Good gravy – these people are self-parodies.
Seane-Anna: perhaps that’s why the KCMO weather office seldom gets rain forecasts right – they’re lacking in office luxuries.
I’ve had a few employers in my career and, in the private sector (real high-tech such as automation, instrumentation, avionics, etc, that are required to make a profit) it’s common for degreed engineers (BS and MS) to be stuck in squalid, noisy, Dilbertesqe cubes. And despite the desperate shortage of engineers we hear about all the time, the working conditions have not improved (and have worsened at many companies).
My last employer had people classified as “scientists” (a notch above engineers) – some of whom were published – that were parked in the same cubes as engineers, admins, etc.
The writer John Derbyshire has remarked that the term “government employee union” was incorrect as there really aren’t any opposing sides… they are lobbies, not unions.
Fore them all for cause, and decertify the union.
Mendacity like that provides the reason.
Eric Hines
Just remember these are the guys that stopped Global Warming from melting the poles that Al “Jazeera” Gore predicted would happen by 213
I’m not surprised at the union demands. I worked for an engineering company that subcontracted work for a Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) project, and the BOP ‘job shack’ was nicer than many homes. The first time I needed to find their office, the person I asked smirked and said ‘The palace is over there.” 1500 sq. ft. of portable office in the shadiest spot on site, nicely furnished, and containing four people. Our ‘office’ for nearly a year was the desk in our rented condo, and whatever space we could find on site.
My experience has been similar to KCRob’s: while I’ve never had to work out of a cube, I have had to share office space with between one and three other engineers. I’ve seen whole floors at Boeing where engineers sit at what amounts to a long desk with small partitions and overhead cabinets every five feet.
I’m wondering why the union is being allowed to make these demands so late in the game. On every construction job I’ve worked on, everything is specified and budgeted before the first shovel of earth moves. Sure, there are change orders o’plenty, but what the union is demanding goes far beyond that.
We missed this news about our favorite doorknob licker.
http://reason.com/blog/2014/06/04/u-chicago-students-go-ballistic-after-da
U. Chicago Students Go Ballistic After Dan Savage Says ‘Tranny’
To the Wall with the lot of them.
It’s time that our civil “servants” re-learn their place in the food-chain.
I worked for the Weather Service back in the early 1990s. The building we had was drafty and hideous. When the new Doppler radar was being installed, they remade the building. It was expensive and frankly not much of an improvement. But there was none of the extravagance that is displayed nowadays. But that was back in the first Bush administration.
How nice! Somebody has good taste. The union collects so much in dues from the membership, why don’t they underwrite the costs? After the union leaders receiving their exorbitant salaries, for what rainy day are the saving their money?