HAPPENING NOW: employees from the Dept. Of Public Works marching up to try and speak to @mayorcantrell. They’re on strike because they say they’re understaffed and underpaid. @wdsu pic.twitter.com/hy50GBjTB8— Christina Watkins (@CWatkinsWDSU) August 13, 2018
So far as I can tell there is just one news outlet mentioning this, whatever this is so far. Did they just decide to walk out this morning? A more planned action might have gotten out a press release. Maybe someone will ask the mayor about it when she comes out to cheerlead for the drug war today.
Meanwhile we can only guess about what's up. Most city employees are already expecting a raise this year. In 2017, a study commissioned by the Landrieu administration recommended a 10 percent pay increase citing the skyrocketing cost of living. As of this May, a supposed first round of raises went into effect for the 500 some odd employees who had been making under $24,000 a year. Employees at higher grades than that are still waiting to see if they get bumped up this year or not. That will likely depend on how the city budget process works out which is just getting started but one can imagine a, "Well we needed to keep all of the traffic cameras to pay for these raises" scenario coming into play.
The other point of contention could have to do with the future of the Public Works Department given that they're considering merging it with Sewerage and Water Board somehow. But I don't know enough about how that would work just yet.
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