July 24, 2015
By Jim Cline
One additional sign of good economic news this week came in the form of a Bureau of Labor Statistics Second Quarter Wage Report. The BLS, the data reporting branch of the Department of Labor reports that despite the low rate of inflation, reports wages are rising, 2.7% as to the period one year ago:
Filed Under: Economic Developments, Economics
July 22, 2015
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is Part 5 of our 11 Part Summer 2013 Wage Series. In our last article, we covered Commissioned Deputy and Police Officer Wages. In this article, we turn to Firefighter and Corrections Officer Wages. We’ll cover Dispatcher and Records Clerk Wages in the next article.
Filed Under: Economics
July 17, 2015
Wage Series Part 4: How Do Your Wages Stack Up: Statewide Commissioned City and County Wage Rankings
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
In part 4 of our on-going wage series we now turn to the rankings of County Deputy and City Police Officer rankings throughout the State. This series always produces both expected and unexpected information about the relative standing of jurisdictions.
Filed Under: Wage Settlements
July 15, 2015
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is the third article in our 11 part series reporting on contract settlement trends. This article highlights some of the recent economic developments most likely to impact your negotiations outlook.
Filed Under: Uncategorized
July 13, 2015
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is the second part of our 11 part Summer 2015 wage series. In this article we take a look at recent contract settlements and examine how those trends vary from recent previous years. Our view of 2013 and 2014 settlements and what we have so far from 2015 indicates that the Washington State public safety employee wages are a mirror of national wage stagnation. We see flat wage increases with little substantial real wage growth. Whether a growing economy eventually will accelerate these is something we’ll discuss later in this series.
Filed Under: Wage Settlements
July 10, 2015
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
This is the first of an 11 part series addressing current economic conditions and wage settlement trends. In this Summer 2015 Wage Series we’ll bring you an update on CPI and economic developments, wage settlements, interest arbitration trends, statewide wage rankings for public safety classifications across the State, and an in-depth analysis of what factors appear to be impacting those rankings and settlements.
Filed Under: CPI
July 7, 2015
By Jim Cline and Donna Steinmetz
Cline and Casillas today released a major overhaul of its Premium Website. Clients and subscribers can visit the new website here. A video showing how to use the new website can be seen here.
Filed Under: Other Contract Surveys
March 20, 2015
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
More often than not, employers prefer a fixed percent COLA adjustment, as opposed to a number tied to the CPI. Having a fixed percentage COLA number written in the “out year” labor contract settlements provides the employer a “known” number to plug into their budgets. While your members have often preferred the ability to keep full pace with inflation, the recent falling and erratic CPI numbers pose a new question: Would you be better off with your contract settlements tied to a fixed percentage increase?
March 12, 2015
By Jim Cline and Kate Kremer
The recent fall off in gas prices has dramatically impacted the reported inflation rate. The most recent rate reported on the Seattle inflation numbers were through the end of 2014 and, following a dramatic fall in fuel prices, the Seattle number plummeted. Its high number for the year was 2.6% in April and by December that number had dropped to 1.1%. Even more dramatic was the drop of the All-Cities national CPI number to 0.3%. This chart shows the inflation numbers during the course of 2014.
March 6, 2015
By Jim Cline
The February "Economic and Revenue Update" from the Washington State Economic and Revenue Forecast Council provides a good summary of the recent rounds of good economic news both nationally and locally. The key findings by the Revenue Council include that on the national level.
