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The Sacramento Bee reports that the labor contract between California state government and the 2,800 employees represented by California Association of Professional Scientists expired this week, spotlighting yet again the long-running feud over whether the tiny union's members should earn as much as their peers in federal and local governments and private industry. "It's a challenge to keep people motivated," says Rita Hypnarowski. "We talk about retaining the best and the brightest, but I can see that's not going to happen." A recent survey by the Brown administration found that the total compensation for half of state-employed chemists is less than $8,985 per month. That's 33 percent less than the median total compensation for federal chemists, nearly 13 percent less than the midpoint for local-government chemists and almost 6 percent below the private sector.
Members of the union perform a wide variety of tasks, everything from fighting food-borne illnesses to mopping up the Refugio State Beach oil spill. For example Cassandra McQuaid left a job last year at the Department of Public Health's state-of-the-art Richmond laboratories where she tracked foodborne illnesses. It's the kind of vital, behind-the-scenes work that goes unnoticed until an E. coli outbreak makes headlines and local health officials need a crack team of scientists to unravel how it happened. "It really came down to money," says McQuaid. "I just couldn't live in the Bay Area on a state salary."
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @08:53PM
That is part of the problem. If you want good people you need to compensate them well. They don't, so they get less educated people. In other words, you have cause and effect reversed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @09:26PM
I don't think it is that simple. It depends upon their roles. Chemists who work for the state will be more involved in "ordinary" chemistry; things like sample preparation and analysis, working with Public Works on water safety issues and additives, etc. Research chemists will be involved more with doing exploratory research. It isn't simply a matter that if you pay the state chemists more money that they'll suddenly get Ph.D.s and be doing exploratory research. Paying your diner line cook more money doesn't mean that you can start serving gourmet dinners. It depends upon the roles and responsibilities of the jobs they are in. That isn't to say the line cook can't cook gourmet dinners, but since you're not offering gourmet dinners in your diner, you aren't going to pay for someone with that level of expertise or responsibility.