Opinion
Trashing Workers to Balance Budget
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
B ERNIE F OSTER
Founder/Publisher
B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER
Executive Editor
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Advertising Manager
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Account Executive
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News Editor
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M ONICA J. F OSTER
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S USAN F RIED
Photographers
The Skanner Newspaper, established
in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
C
ongress is on fire to bal-
ance the federal budget,
and they don’t care who
they take as prisoners in the
process. There are at least two
proposals to freeze federal salaries
for yet another year (they have
been frozen since 2011), and to
continue to demonize federal
workers as do-nothing folks who
don’t need raises. Meanwhile,
President Obama has asked for a
minimal half percent a year
increase while many in the private
sector are seeing wages rise. Of
course, everyone is struggling
with unemployment rates rising to
8.2 percent. Still, it is onerous that
federal employees seem to be
bearing the brunt of this budget
crisis.
It is even worse when we under-
stand that African Americans
make up 17.4 percent of the feder-
al workforce, compared to 10.1
percent of the civilian labor force.
Of course, the higher the pay
grade, the fewer African Ameri-
cans. Whatever the pay grade, it is
clear that African Americans are
far more likely to get proportional
pay in the federal government than
in the private sector. Thus, pro-
posals to cut federal pay dispro-
portionately
affect
African
Americans. Somebody could per-
haps argue that cuts are race neu-
tral, but I’m not buying. The fact
is that the federal government has
been most open to African Ameri-
can workers, and most willing to
offer relatively equal pay.
Too many would like to charac-
terize government workers as inef-
fective without looking at the fact
that most federal government and
B ENNETT
C OLLEGE
Julianne
Malveaux
private workers do their jobs and
then some. Everybody can tell tri-
fling somebody-done-me-wrong
songs, but the real deal is most
workers do their best. Those
members of Congress that target
federal workers ought to look long
at hard and the results they get
from the folks who process Social
Security checks, manage veterans’
benefits, move money from the
federal government to state and
local governments, and manage
the process. These folks need
kudos not the killing remarks that
suggest that they don’t earn their
money.
It’s a rough job market and
many, including federal employ-
ees, make the choice to take pay
who have steady and well-paid
employment, but at the same time,
who wants to work without appre-
ciation or a raise? Does our Con-
gress cut off our nose to spite our
face by targeting federal employ-
ees?
As a CEO, I’ve had to preside
over the difficult task of imposing
pay freezes and hoping that my
staff would understand that frozen
pay is better than no pay or lay-
It is even worse when we understand
that African Americans make up 17.4
percent of the federal workforce,
compared to 10.1 percent of the
civilian labor force
offs. At the same time, I shudder
when I think that our federal gov-
ernment cannot appreciate, even in
a small way, those who keep our
trains running, our balls in the air,
How can Congress push to maintain
Bush tax cuts, but fail to raise wages
for federal employees?
freezes instead of looking for other
work. Are we losing some of our
best employees, though, when we
impose a freeze for the third year
in a row? It may be hard for some
others to sympathize with folks
federal employees?
There are two reasons that I am
passionate about this.
First,
although many federal workers
earn more than $150,000 a year,
too many, mostly Black women,
are at the GS-1 to GS-4 level,
earning less than $40,000 annual-
ly. These women raise families,
send children to school and over-
come odds. They need a raise.
They aren’t going to get it from a
our elders compensated, our work
done. Half a percent is a small
amount, and it hits those at the
bottom, not the top. How can
Congress push to maintain Bush
tax cuts, but fail to raise wages for
Congress that demonizes govern-
ment workers, and that is a
tragedy. Secondly, African Amer-
icans are more likely to get fair
treatment from a civil service sys-
tem than from the ordinary labor
market, and it seems that this is a
reason that some legislators seem
to go after government employees.
While Congress must be prudent
about our budget, they shouldn’t
take it out of the hide of govern-
ment workers, especially those at
the very bottom. There is no fair-
ness in freezing government
salaries while other salaries rise.
Julianne Malveaux is a Wash-
ington, D.C.-based economist and
writer. She is President Emerita of
Bennett College for Women in
Greensboro, N.C.
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Florida, Again, Center of Vote Suppression
R
ecent attempts to prevent
voters of color in Florida
from fully exercising their
constitutional right to vote suf-
fered twin blows last week. First,
on Thursday, the Federal District
Court in Miami granted a prelimi-
nary injunction effectively block-
ing several key provisions of
Florida’s new and restrictive voter
registration laws. Calling the new
registration requirements “oner-
ous,” the judge sided with the
National Urban League, our Flori-
da affiliates and a coalition of civil
rights and voting rights groups
who believe that these illegitimate
and burdensome restrictions have
only one purpose – to suppress the
votes of millions of Floridians.
A second victory for voting
rights occurred on Thursday when
the U.S. Department of Justice
Voting Section informed Florida’s
Secretary of State that the state’s
current effort to purge voting rolls
– allegedly to keep non-citizens
from voting – was likely in viola-
tion of the 1965 Voting Rights Act
and the 1993 National Voter Reg-
istration Act. The state has target-
ed about 2,700 so-called ineligible
voters for removal from the rolls
unless they provide proof of citi-
zenship within 30 days. The effort
is so flawed that hundreds of legal
residents, including several heroic
World War II veterans, have
received insulting letters demand-
ing proof of citizenship.
In its letter challenging the
Page 4 The Portland Skanner June 13, 2012
T O B E
E QUAL
Marc Morial
state’s actions, the Justice Depart-
ment said that Florida failed to
comply with Section 5 of the Vot-
ing Rights Act because it has not,
as required, submitted any
changes affecting voting to the
federal court or the U.S. Attorney
General for review. The letter also
stated that under the National
Voter Registration Act, any pro-
gram to eliminate ineligible per-
sons from the voting rolls must be
completed 90 days prior to a fed-
eral primary or general election
and must be “uniform and non-
discriminatory.” With Florida’s
primary slated for Aug. 14, the
state has clearly missed the dead-
line. And with Hispanics compris-
These federal rulings are a victo-
ry for Floridians and for those of
us on the front lines working to
protect one of our most precious
rights – the right to vote. Let’s not
forget that because of voting irreg-
ularities in Florida, including clear
instances of voter suppression, a
mere total of 537 votes and the
‘We must fight voter suppression, we
must educate citizens so that new
laws won’t catch them unaware on
Election Day, and we must empower
them to get to the polls’
— National Urban League 2012 State of Black
America – Occupy the Vote
United States Supreme Court
decided the 2000 presidential elec-
tion. The nation vowed to never
let that happen again. But, Florida
Hundreds of legal residents, including
several heroic World War II veterans,
have received insulting letters
demanding proof of citizenship
ing the majority of those targeted
by this measure, we believe it also
fails the non-discrimination test.
across the country.
The National Urban League’s
“Occupy the Vote” campaign has
made the protection of voting
rights our No. 1 issue in 2012. We
are calling on citizens to join us in
the fight against voter suppression
laws that are clearly designed to
keep people of color, students, the
has emerged as a key battleground
in a new and unprecedented war
on voter rights currently underway
elderly and people with disabili-
ties from the polls. We have also
teamed up with the NAACP to
sponsor a voter empowerment hot-
line to enable callers to register to
vote and report problems: 1-866-
MYVOTE-1. Nothing will have a
greater impact on the future of
Black America in 2012 than the
vote. That is why we will contin-
ue the fight to remove barriers and
empower all citizens to fully exer-
cise this precious right.
Marc H. Morial is president and
CEO of the National Urban
League