March 4, 2014
There comes a time when an issue deserves discussing. And this week we ran into one of those.
It seems that during the storm last week our law enforcement, firefighters, emergency crews, county and state road crews, street maintenance and city water crews and others had to work in sub-zero temps in order to keep traffic moving, repair damaged infrastructure and all the “outside” jobs that came up.
And they answered the call, in fine fashion. We appreciate their work and believe they should have been paid double time for braving the weather to do their jobs.
One of the workers wrote a comment in The Lazer that he did not think it was right that they had to endure the elements to get paid while clerks, secretaries, assistants and other “inside” workers got paid right along even though the courthouse wss closed. And the “inside” workers make about a third more than most of the “outside” workers to begin with.
Then one of the “inside” workers wrote a comment that said they were working from home on their computers during the time and earned their money, too.
That statement makes us wonder why they come to the courthouse to work at all. They should just work from home and let an answering service answer the phones. The “inside workers” are very valuable and the county and city governments could not operate without them, but there are a lot of them that make a lot of money considering their education and other qualifications for their positions. This is true in most east Kentucky politics centers, ‘er counties.
It is understandable why the courthouse had to be closed duting the Code 3 alert issued by EMS director Michael Woods was in effect. It meant that only emergency workers were to be on the roads. But those days and the work that wasn’t done during those times can and should be made up.
School system employees must make up days they miss and medical personnel and those who work at local businesses certainly have to be there to get paid and the list goes on and on.
We think it is unfair for these “inside” workers to be paid their regular salaries while sitting at home while the “outside” workers fight the elements to earn their checks. So, it is up to the fiscal court and city council to make sure employees are paid fairly and according to their work – and not if they are men or women or well connected.
We ask that these outside workers be paid double time for the hours they worked in the freezing, icy weather and the ‘inside’ workers be required to work Saturdays until the snow days are made up.
What is good for the goose must be good for the gander.
