It's official: The pay freeze on Montana state employee salaries is over. More than 100 people, including MEA-MFT members, state legislators and local officials, were on hand at the Montana State [Men's] Prison in Deer Lodge Feb. 24 for Gov. Brian Schweitzer's (D) bill-signing ceremony of the state employee pay plan.

The bill enacts the two-year pay plan MEA-MFT negotiated with Schweitzer in early January, shortly after his inauguration. Under the plan, state employees represented by the MEA-MFT will receive a 3.5 percent pay raise or $1,005, whichever is greater, starting October 2005, and a 4 percent increase or $1,118 starting Oct. 1, 2006.

"This was a huge deal for the [Deer Lodge and Anaconda] community," says MEA-MFT president Eric Feaver, who joined Schweitzer and other state dignitaries on the state airplane for the trip to Deer Lodge. "When you pay employees more, they go spend money." MEA-MFT, which represents 450 workers at the prison, has around 1,000 members living in the Deer Lodge-Anaconda area.

The pay plan success reinforces the importance of political and legislative action by public employees and their unions. MEA-MFT started negotiations on state employee pay in August 2004 with the administration of then-Gov. Judy Martz (R), which initially proposed continuing the pay freeze. "From a political action point of view, we are reaping now what we sowed," says Feaver. "We worked hard to get Schweitzer and a Democratic Legislature [elected], and we did that to get a better deal for state employees."  [Kathy Walsh]

February 25, 2005