The Invisible Workforce

VSEA President Shelley Martin’s commentary on Vermont’s increasing use of temporary workers in Sunday’s Times Argus and Rutland Herald:

The temps go to work each day with full-time state employees doing jobs very similar to theirs, but with one huge difference. Many of the employees the temps work alongside belong to VSEA and are covered under a contract that affords them a fair wage, health care coverage and pension benefits.

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The Vermont State Employees’ Association (VSEA) hears often from members about the increasing number of temporary employees working today in state government.

The temps go to work each day with full-time state employees doing jobs very similar to theirs, but with one huge difference. Many of the employees the temps work alongside belong to VSEA and are covered under a contract that affords them a fair wage, health care coverage and pension benefits.

But the temps receive no health care or retirement benefits, and many are probably left to rely heavily on state assistance. Disturbingly, the number of hours temps are working for the state is rapidly rising. The state’s own yearly Workforce Reports show the number of hours jumping 28 percent from 902,089 hours in 2009 to 1,154,888 hours in 2014.

Today, you’ll find temps occupying roughly 20 percent of all state government jobs, with 600 to 1,000 temps employed across Vermont at any one time. And far too many of these temps have been working for the state in these positions for years — not just a few days, weeks or even months — but years.

As reward for their temporary service, these workers are paid an average hourly wage of $13.13 per hour, but receive no health care coverage, retirement security or a host of other benefits that most working Vermonters — both public and private sector — enjoy and earn every day.

Instead, many temps who are not currently working, or who retire after temping for years, are left to rely on state assistance, which places additional pressure on our already overburdened public services and our state’s budget.

Vermont can and must do better for what some in the labor movement have correctly labeled “the invisible workforce.”

VSEA members are impacted almost daily by the presence of temps in their workplace, and we hear often from classified state employees about how inefficient and frustrating it is when they have to constantly stop what they are doing to answer a temp’s questions, educate them about how a system works or help them properly provide the quality services Vermonters expect and deserve. The stories are many — here are a few:

Just before Christmas, VSEA members working in the State’s Health Access Eligibility Unit (HAEU) were subjected to mandated overtime to process a backlog of Vermont Health Connect applications. The HAEU employees were asked to field calls from Vermonters as well, and temps were hired to assist them on the phones. According to many VSEA HAEU members, the temps’ inexperience and questions slowed down a process that was already having problems.

VSEA members working in call centers operated by the Department for Families and Children (DCF), report that attempts to bring down the 3Squares program’s nagging error rate are constantly being hampered by the state’s reliance on temps to help answer Vermonters’ calls. DCF has been fined for the past two years for high error rates in food stamps processing, which can be partially attributed to the over-reliance on temporary employees.

VSEA members working as DCF benefits processing specialists must receive more than six weeks of training to provide their service, yet they are working side-by-side with temps with insufficient training. Temps are limited to 1,520 hours annually; therefore the reliance on temporary employees creates a revolving door of temps where the state is constantly laying off trained and qualified employees to hire new temps who require additional resources to be trained.

A Department of Corrections (DOC) correctional officer is also required to have more than six weeks of training, but annually the DOC employs 150-200 temps who cover roughly 50 full-time, classified correctional officer positions.

These temporary employees receive the same training as permanent correctional officers, but must be constantly replaced due to the 1,520 hour statutory cap and high turnover caused by the lack of job security. And the DOC temps come with other issues as well. Just last week, the DOC issued a memo to employees, advising them to stay home if they are sick.

However, VSEA’s DOC members are quick to point out that DOC temps will often come to work sick because they don’t want to lose the income from the job, which defeats the purpose of the DOC’s original request to its employees to stay home. VSEA suspects this is probably a concern for many classified employees working daily alongside temps.

VSEA recognizes the necessity of temporary employees for seasonal or fill-in employment, however the abuse of temporary workers to supplement classified employees is bad for the taxpayer, bad for the morale of state workers and bad for the economic security of temporary workers and their families.

VSEA does acknowledge that some of the reason for the spike in the state’s temp use can be attributed to the current administration still doing triage from Gov.James Douglas’s Challenges for Change 600-plus position-cutting exercise a few years back. But our members are concerned that the temp numbers have not come down much since then and, in fact, are increasing.

To confront this reality, VSEA is working with lawmakers to pass legislation this session, S.218 and H.624, to convert temporary employees to full-time, part-time or limited-service status by creating a mechanism to review temporary positions once they approach their statutory hourly limit.

If a temp meets the hourly limit, currently 1,520 hours, the administration would be obligated to inform the Legislature, if it’s in session (or the Joint Fiscal Committee, if not in session), about the temporary position, which would then allow lawmakers to decide whether or not the temp position should be converted to full-time, part-time or limited-service status for a determined number of years.

The legislation also asks for temps to be provided with prorated sick days for their service, or one hour for every 30 hours worked.

The state spent nearly $15.6 million to employ temps in fiscal year 2013, but VSEA members say a lot of that money is wasted on the time spent by full-time, classified state employees to assist and train temps who may or may not be back tomorrow. If the temp doesn’t return and is replaced by yet another temp, the cycle begins all over again.

If VSEA and our community allies are able to break this cycle and bring the temp numbers down, we believe Vermonters will receive better and faster service and that many of Vermont’s temp workers will finally be able to leave public assistance and experience how it feels to have financial, medical and retirement security. Please join VSEA in supporting S. 218 and H. 624. We can and must do better for this invisible Vermont workforce.