How do you make up nothing?

There is talk of a strike among Montana state employees if negotiations for the 2006-07 biennium don’t result in a decent pay raise.

“I’m taking a pretty hard line personally on the issue,” says Eric Feaver, president of the MEA-MFT. “State employees got hammered in the last session.”

That hammering was a year-and-a-half pay freeze followed by a 25 cent hourly increase starting Jan.1, 2005. “It’s embarrassing and wrong,” says Feaver, noting that the union, which started prebudget negotiations with the governor’s office Aug. 31, is asking for an 8 percent pay raise for both fiscal 2006 and 2007. “It’s a starting point,” says Feaver, asking “how do you make up nothing? Which is why an employer should never give a pay freeze because [employees] will come back, as we are, wanting to make it up.”

The state is not expected to make a pay raise offer until October. Meanwhile, the state has more than a $160 million budget surplus anticipated for the coming biennium. “As far as I am concerned, we are going to get some of that money,” says Feaver. “If the governor doesn’t agree in pre-budget negotiations to a reasonable pay package, then we will go to the Legislature. If we are simply not able to get a positive response, then I think state employees will strike. I don’t think they have anything to lose and a lot to gain. I’ve been through a lot of strikes—and that is not always true. When it comes to the bottom line in trying to survive in the economic marketplace right now, a strike is a tool we should use to get what we want.”

“I anticipate the new governor will be faced with a strike in the first eight months in office,” Sen. Bob Keenan, a Republican from Bigfork and president of the Senate, told the Associated Press in August, noting that due to the various demands for government resources, employees may be left with unsatisfactory raises.