Sooner or later I knew I was going to have to cover this topic in my column and my mother always told me that things don’t get any easier by avoiding them. (How do mothers know all this stuff?) So here goes.
I have had numerous conversations about whether the city’s employees’ wages and benefits are in line with where they should be. These conversations have involved many of our citizens and have also been a popular topic around the council table during budget talks. Approximately 56 percent of our total expense budget is designated to wages and benefits. There is no question in my mind that the majority of our citizens feel the city’s employees are over-compensated and that the taxpayers cannot afford to continue down this road. There are, however, some who don’t feel the wages and benefits are out of line.
I don’t know what parameters other people are basing their decision on, but in my thought process to determine whether wages are out of line or not, you have to first decide what you are comparing them to. If you compare them to what the average taxpayer in Caribou receives, who works in the private sector in a similar position, they probably are overpaid. If you compare them to what the other municipalities in Maine such as Fort Kent, Presque Isle etc. pay their employees in similar jobs, they are probably right on target. It is really no different than what you see in private industry. If you look at what the autoworkers receive at General Motors compared to what they make at Ford and Chrysler, they are right in line. If however you compare them to assembly line workers in most other industries, you would come to the conclusion that they are overpaid.
The real problem, based on the conversations I’ve had, is not whether they are overpaid or not, but the fact that a lot of people act like it is the employee’s fault, even to the point of making derogatory comments about them. I can understand people being upset about the situation, but for the life of me I can’t understand why they think it is the employees’ fault. I don’t remember one time in my life when one of my employers sat down with me during a salary review, to tell me I was getting a raise or to tell me there was an increase in my benefit package, and I replied, “Oh no, that isn’t necessary. I’m making far more money now than I should be and the benefits I am now receiving are more than generous.” In a number of instances I even had the audacity to ask for more. I’m sure most of you have done the same. If you want to get upset with someone because of the current situation, perhaps you should look at the city councilors that approved these increases.
I have also heard many comments regarding the competency of some of our employees. In private industry you have some of this as well, but it is usually only discussed within the operation itself, not in a public forum. I can’t recall one instance of someone approaching me in public to tell me about how a certain fryer operator at McCain Foods didn’t have a clue, or that a particular clerk in the office at MMG is incompetent and should be replaced.
If you look around your own place of work I think you will find it is no different than the city workplace. Every company has some employees who are excellent, some who are average, and a few who are below average. So why would we expect the city of Caribou to be any different. I know that unless I’d spent a good deal of time working directly with someone, I would find it very difficult to judge how competent they were in their position. I know I wouldn’t want anyone judging my abilities that hadn’t worked with me and were basing it on a single occurrence they had experienced. We all have our bad days and we have all made mistakes in carrying out our jobs.
I have found that any of the people I have worked with in my career, who were considered below average was simply due to lack of training, or not having the proper tools to do the job. Obviously there were those as well that were unable to do a specific job and had to be replaced. Do we have employees in the city who don’t do a great job? Unless the city is different than any other company or business I have been associated with during my lifetime, the answer is “yes.” What responsibilities do you and I have to correct the situation? None. It is up to the department managers to determine if the employees are performing up to standard and if not, what is the cause, and what they need to do to correct it.
I had a number of personal rules I tried to live by during my career. One of those was “treat other people the way you want to be treated.” I hope everyone thinks about this the next time they want to be publicly critical of someone else.
During my career I literally had hundreds of discussions with employees and associates concerning their jobs and salary. The answers were always the same. Not one of them ever thought they were overpaid. Many of them however, knew all kinds of people who were. Most of them felt they deserved more money for what they did. Every one of them felt they were doing more than the other employees performing the same tasks for their employer. Sound familiar? I’m sure all of you have experienced the same thing. Maybe someday I will meet some of those people who think they are overpaid and do less than the other people they work with. If you see them before I do, send them around. I’d love to have a chat with them.
Do you suppose the people out there who talk about all those jobs and people who are overpaid would change their thought process if they were accepted into one of those positions tomorrow? Hmmm! I think I know the answer.
“What have you done today to make Caribou a better place for all of its citizens?”
This column is strictly the opinion or view of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the City of Caribou’s administration staff, its employees, or other council members. Gary Aiken may be reached at garyaiken@hotmail.com
