State worker crisis deserves attention

With workforce stress mounting for public employees, legislators and managers need to take immediate action by filling vacancies and increasing pay

It’s often mind-boggling which issues get the most attention and which get ignored. 

Over the past few weeks, a bill in the legislature barring the state from paying for remote workers who live in other states to travel to Oregon for work moved rapidly through the legislature. It garnered local and national news attention. Watching the coverage, you would think this was a huge problem on which the state has wasted millions of dollars. 

Truthfully, there are very few state workers who don’t live in Oregon, and even fewer who live more than 50 miles away. The state has spent very little on out of state travel, and it’s not stopping the state from delivering services. It’s not a problem that affects our everyday lives. 

What does affect us – and gets no attention – is the workforce crisis at the state. 

Every day, we are negatively affected by this staffing crisis. 

There are thousands of vacancies across state agencies. Employees are overworked and burned out. Continued challenges with technology make work inefficient. The Department of Motor Vehicles has closed offices because of lack of staff. Seniors can’t find caregivers. And the state hospital has become an unsafe place to work and get treatment. 

These are real problems affecting real peoples’ lives and are not ordinary or acceptable issues. 

The state cannot recruit workers, and many are leaving for jobs with better pay at counties, cities and the private sector.

Since 2017, wages for private sector workers in Oregon have increased 30%, according to Employment Department data, while state employees have seen cost-of-living adjustments of only 10%. With soaring inflation over the last two years, it’s unsurprising the state can’t recruit or keep enough staff to plow state highways or ensure field offices stay open.

It is beyond us why the plight of state workers is not newsworthy; it’s almost like state workers are expected to fall behind and be overworked. 

The impact has left many state workers barely making ends meet while trying to cover the workload for thousands of unfilled jobs. Holly, a worker at the Department of Human Services (DHS), covers for other unfilled positions because the state can’t hire new staff. Holly takes overtime when it’s offered, but recovering from cancer treatment, she isn’t always physically well enough to work extra hours. She used to sell plasma to help cover the rent; since undergoing chemotherapy, it’s no longer an option to make extra cash. Compounded by the state’s Workday implementation, Holly hasn’t had a full paycheck since before Thanksgiving. 

Candee has worked for the state for 20 years; thus, taking a job elsewhere is not option this late in her career. She works in technology supporting human services staff yet doesn’t earn enough to help her daughter take community college classes. She has two other minimum wage jobs to cover housing, food, and gas. She rarely gets a day off, since she spends most weekends working. 

Many employers have raised wages to attract workers, while the state has not. The state’s worker shortage is so bad, some field offices are at 50% staffing. 

It cannot be said enough: this is a crisis. That state agencies are so understaffed that the workload continually gets shifted to those that remain is unsustainable. It affects us and the folks that keep our state running. They are doing the jobs we rely on them to do. And management needs to step up to ensure they are paid enough to keep doing the critical jobs that make Oregon work.  

This is a crisis that deserves media attention. It’s a crisis that will take the legislature and the Governor to make a substantial investment to resolve. 

Mike Powers is president of Service Employees International Union 503 and Melissa Unger is executive director of SEIU 503.