Between now and April 10, the Legislature has the ability to cancel a scheduled 3 percent across-the-board pay raise for unionized government employees.

It has been argued that government employees have already made concessions. But the bottom line is that state employees are still doing pretty well. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average wage in Michigan (not corrected for inflation) increased by 14.9 percent between 2002 and 2008. But for state employees, the average wage calculated by the Civil Service Commission increased by 21.9 percent. Wages for state employees have gone up half again as fast as they did for workers throughout the state. Certainly they can afford to go without an across-the-board raise this year.

There are still 33 days to fix this…

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