LETTER: Bonuses for all city workers!
While most Las Vegans haven’t received paychecks for months, city employees — none of whom were laid off or furloughed because of COVID-19 — will be rewarded with a 3 percent hazard pay bonus (Saturday Review-Journal). It is an oxymoron that we are all in this together.
The tentative one-time bonus is more than an appalling insult to the thousands of out-of-work Las Vegans who are behind on their mortgages and forced to wait in food distribution lines for handouts. It is even more egregious given city revenue declines due to virus shutdowns that brought businesses to a screeching halt in March, causing Nevada to have the nation’s highest unemployment rate.
The bonus for 1,300 city workers was agreed upon May 14, according to the union president, who says “Everybody gets it, if you were at home or if you were working.” Truth be told: Our economy and the lives of millions of average citizens have been devastated, and public employees whose salaries are borne by taxpayers should not benefit from our suffering.
