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Highlands Today

Cooked Geese Anyone?

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Sherrie Hess-Anderson

Published: May 19, 2008

If you are not making a living here in Highlands County, blame your local elected official.

My husband works for Cross Country, like about 500 others here in Highlands County. Prior to locating their business here in Highlands County, Cross Country's intentions were to pay more per hour than they are currently paying.

Our wonderful local city councilmen at that time negotiated with Cross Country and they nixed the higher pay that Cross Country was going to offer their employees.
The reason was the city councilmen were concerned that if Cross Country paid as much as they were intending to pay, local business would not be able to compete and Cross Country would depreciate the local employee pool making the low cost employee unavailable to our local businessmen. Their reasoning was that this would hurt the local businessman.

In fact, our local elected officials assured Cross Country that there was enough of a local employee pool that they would not have to do very much recruiting. We all see the truth now. Everywhere you look you see signs stating "Cross Country Now Hiring."

So next time you have to make the choice between food for your family or gas to get to work because you do not have the money for both, you can blame your local elected official, not that major corporation you think is holding back their wages because of greed.

It's really time we had a major overhaul around here. Carl Cool's replacement is going to be given a salary of $150,000 plus perks. Supposedly it's because its the only way we can compete with the larger areas is to offer an equal pay package.

So the old saying of, "what's good for the goose, is not good for the gander" applies also to government officials when they are trying to attract and keep the best employee possible. Well Mr.-Mrs. Geese, when I go to the polls you can bet your ole warm Southern place where the sun don't shine that another old saying will apply here: "Your goose is going to be cooked" as far as I am concerned.

As always, let your voice be heard. Every week Highlands Today publishes a list of how to reach your local elected official. Next time you see it, make a phone call. Hey, it's cheaper than gas these days.

Sherrie Hess-Anderson
Sebring

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