State employee union calls for salary increases

(Oklahoma City-AP) -- The state workers union today chided lawmakers for excluding the state's 34-thousand employees from a teacher pay raise package. The union has called for a new round of salary

Tuesday, January 25th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(Oklahoma City-AP) -- The state workers union today chided lawmakers for excluding the state's 34-thousand employees from a teacher pay raise package. The union has called for a new round of salary hikes to lift state workers from last place in state employee salaries nationwide.

Gary Jones is executive director of the Oklahoma Public Employees Association.
Jones calls for three thousand dollar annual raises for each of the state's workers. That would equal raises in a teacher pay plan
proposed by legislative leaders yesterday.
He says Oklahoma ranks 50th in average annual salaries among the 50 states.

U-S Census Bureau figures indicate that workers' average annual salary was 23-thousand-917 dollars in March 1998. The state worker raises would cost 90 million dollars and the teacher pay plan would cost 170 million dollars.