Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Wyoming Rep. Tim Stubson plans to punish state employees by taking away benefits

Wondering what Republicans talk about when they have time on their hands?

If you're Rep. Tim Stubson, House Majority Whip, an attorney and an independently wealthy man-about-town from Casper, you think to yourself: "Those state employees make too much money and have too many benefits. Let's take something away from them just for the hell of it."

Stubson's spouse, Susan, should know better, as she once served on the Wyoming Arts Council board. Stubson also has two sons, one of whom served as a page at the legislature. Said the Rep. Stubson to his son: "This is how we Republicans stick it to state employees, son."

Here's Stubson's big plan:
House Bill 0079 - Redefining vacation as unpaid wages: Sponsored by Representative Tim Stubson, it passed the State House last week and is awaiting introduction in the State Senate.  It would remove vacation pay as a "unpaid wage" in the case of termination from employment, effectively removing it from the worker's final paycheck.  We do NOT SUPPORT this bill in the Senate, and believe it would harm workers in this state greatly by withholding necessary income that they earned during the time they were employed.  Please contact your Senator and let them know you do NOT support this bill! Tell your senator you don't believe in punishing state employees: Just in case you didn't know....the State of Wyoming changed all of the Legislator's emails this year to a uniform email address: Firstname.Lastname@wyoleg.gov
Shame on you, Rep. Stubson.

What the heck is wrong with these stingy, right-wing politicians from Casper?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have a hard enough time getting, and keeping, qualified people to stay in the state to improve the quality of our workforce. Why discourage potential future employees from seeking employment in our state because of poor benefits.

Michael Shay said...

Just another example of the miserly Republican mindset.

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure why an employee who is terminated should be given vacation pay that they have not used. That person didn't "earn" it. It was VACATION pay which was not used. Another case of "somebody owes me something" entitlement perhaps?? Regardless, the real travesty of this blog is the classlessness of the author to include personal attacks about Rep. Stubson's wife and son. Only the weak of character need to revert to name calling and personal attacks, including spouses and small children, in order to disagree with someone. What would have been wrong with a well crafted argument about why terminated employees should get unused(and unearned) vacation pay? Would it have taken too much effort and been too difficult to come up with a intelligent opposing view? Especially for a guy who is a writer. At the end of that discussion the two sides may not agree but then there are reasonable ways to go about change in policy and politics. I'm just not sure weak attacks is one of them.

Michael Shay said...

Stubson is a public figure. If he can't stand the criticism, he should get out of the legislature. BTW, with all of the issues faced by Wyoming, from bad roads to failing schools to leading the nation in the suicide rate, why does Rep. Stubson need to address such a small issue as terminated state employees. It's just part of a long tradition of the Republicans attacking public employees. They are small-minded bigots, as are you.