On The Issues

PUBLIC SERVANTS
HEALTHCARE
FAQ's
EDUCATION
ECONOMICS
CHAMORRO RIGHTS AND CULTURE

PUBLIC SERVANTS

Every Public Servant deserves to make a fair days pay for a fair days work, they deserve decent health insurance and they deserve to be able have a decent retirement after serving our island.

PUBLIC SERVANTS DESERVE A FAIR PAY CHECK

Currently GovGuam workers are underpaid by 39 to 50%. Even though the law has said for decades that their pay scale should be reviewed every four years only a couple of groups of workers have gotten raises thanks to the Union members political action and those were not enough. Every Public Servant should have the right to negotiate their wages and benefits. This means that every three years or so workers and management get to sit down and negotiate a fair wage for all.

PUBLIC SERVANTS AND THEIR FAMILIES DESERVE HIGH QUALITY HEALTHCARE

First, it leaves Public Servants and their families incredibly vulnerable because it is health insurance that most families can’t use. With a $1500 deductable and a requirement that all non-emergent care take place OFF ISLAND!, the majority of these families will not seek Healthcare until a problem has become catastrophic. This is not only bad for the patient’s health but it is bad for their bank account as well. We know that most illnesses, like cancer, are more easily and less expensively treated if they are caught in the early stages, whereas if treatment is delayed not only does the treatment take longer and cost more but sometimes the disease becomes incurable. Secondly, it's insane for our economy. Insisting that Guam spends millions of healthcare dollars in to someone elses economy as opposed to building up our medical infrastructure is of great benefit to other places and the insurance company but disastrous to Guam. The less we invest in our local medical infrastructure the less infrastructure we will have and the less money we have circulating in our economy.

WE MUST REINSTATE THE DEFINED BENEFIT PLAN FOR PUBLIC EMPLOYEES

The DB (old) plan has a $1.5Billion unfunded liability and the majority of people on the new plan will never be able to retire. If we reinstate the old plan workers will start to pay into it which will keep it solvent. While there have been a few highly publicized cases of people that found the loop holes in the old plan, the majority of retirees barely get by. DB plans provide stability in an economy and we do not want to have to deal with the disaster that will result from our old plan going bankrupt or workers staying on the job until they are 90 because they can’t retire. On top of this it is causing Guam to lose trained workers that we have invested in to other states and cities that have DB plans.